The big sign at the front gate of The Grange says 'WELCOME' in LIV Golf's recognisable font with aquamarine plumage, and on Friday for day one of the second annual golf-, drink- and music-fest maybe 35,000 fans said don't mind if they do.
We're on the first tee and being welcomed to Kaurna Country before welcoming Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia and Cameron Smith into the ampi-theatre to do their thing.
Lots of people here. Incessant music. Smoke in the air. There’s a noisy 10-to-one countdown before fireworks shoot out into the still morning air, and Smith steps up and blasts his drive right into the trees.
And we’re away, past legions of fans who line the first fairway, presumably just to see the Famous Men of Golf (if not their golf shots) who include the still oddly magnetic Great White Shark Greg Norman, who strides along in his distinctive gait, high-fiving sports fans, kissing babies, being Greg.
The famous old TV man Frank Chirkinian - without whom golf holes would not be painted white and we'd be adding up golf scores rather than referring to scores as X-under or Y-over - once said the camera loves you or it doesn’t.
It loved Tiger Woods and it loved Arnold Palmer, Chirkinian said, and it loved and still loves Greg Norman. People just look at the man. It is a Thing. He'd be used to it now. But it must be quite odd.
Smith arrives to find his ball has bounced favourably into right rough, and the people clap him to it.
“There was more here last year,” reckons a volunteer man whose gig today, like Willie Wonka’s golden ticket, is to watch the marquee group from inside the ropes and rake their bunkers.
Don't want to question the man's maths. But all 405 metres of the first fairway are lined by sports fans several deep. There's a few in.
We skip across the course to the 11th green where the Ripper team is in the house. They’ve all hit the 382-metre par-4 in two shots, and have surrounded the pin from 10 to 20 feet. You can take it for granted – but it’s amazingly good golf.
Not, of course, relative to a PGA Tour event or Australian Open, say. Indeed it's just ‘normal’ golf. But for the mug amateur, watching these supermen up close, the wow factor is large. It’s why they’re expecting 100,000-plus here across the three days. Norman knows it in his waters.
The LIV people have sent the teams out in three-balls while their captains play with other captains. All the teams are in matching kit; the Ripper boys in navy shirts and beige pants.
Their caddies, too, wear the same colours. Lucas Herbert’s guy, Nick Pugh, looks like young Santa Claus crossed with a fit Scandinavian barista who favours Brisbane Broncos-coloured Ripper-branded hi-tops.
Not everyone could carry off the look. But the camera loves Nicky Pugh, too.
Not everyone could carry off hitting the green, or even hitting the ball, from the tee of the par-3 12th hole, the 'stadium' or 'Watering Hole' hole that Herbert calls “our MCG”.
The raspy-voiced announcer man asks the people to make some noise, and they do, though it’s not as raucous as it will be given we’re just 30 minutes since the shotgun start and 90 minutes since the first responsible service of alcohol.
Indeed, the patrons in the $1300-a-head Cellar Door are all relatively mute … at least until Matt Jones rolls in a 20-footer and pings his ball among the people.
When Marc Leishman makes birdie, too, this third in three holes, the punters roar … just not as loudly as they will at 3pm after being responsibly served a great deal of alcohol.
The Watering Hole is the hot ticket at The Grange this week, even if the suits in the suites on 18 paid more for their view.
And so we wander on and the golf is great.
Leishman frightens the pin on 13 and 14 with chips. Jones hits the flag and is an inch from an ace on 13. Leishman and Jones hit 8-irons to 10 feet from the same fairway bunker on 15.
Around the greens they nip wedges from lies like billiard tables. They’re impossible shots to empathise with, the hands, the bounce, the contact, the spin, the lack of fat-ness and/or thin-ness.
That said… Herbert is hacking it about like an imbalanced wood-chopper.
He three-putts 12 for a double. He blocks a drive on 14 into trees near an orange juice stand. His approach comes out hot and goes through the green.
His chip is thinner than Thin Lizzy. His next putt, a 40-footer, goes six-foot by. He makes the come-backer for a fighting, if hideous, five.
For a man with the hands of Chopin, he’s choppin’ it about. He will finish one-over, one of only nine men in the 54-man field over par. He does not contribute to Ripper’s 15-under and T5 in teams competition behind Torque (20-under) and Iron Heads (19-under).
We head back to the Watering Hole to meet Smith and the marquee three-ball, and the crowd is thick and beery.
Garcia’s walk-up song goes “I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller”, and is apt for all three men's shots which underwhelm, particularly Smith's which is blocked right into sand.
Then he almost sinks his sandie, throws his hat in mock disgust, and the people on the drink exalt.
Japan's Jinichiro Kazuma shoots seven birdies and an eagle for 63 and leads by one from Carlos Ortiz (-8) and Danny Lee (-8).
Jones (-6), Leishman (-5) and Smith (-4) remain in contention with 36 holes to play.
Day two of LIV Adelaide will kick-off on Saturday at 11:15am (Adelaide time).
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