In late 2022 news surfaced of a golfing revolution set to take the game in a new direction and Australian golf officials were on board in a big way.

The Ultra Golf Championship was launched as a short-format, T20-style team golf event designed and founded in Australia by Deke Smith and sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia.

There were set to be 10 capital city-based teams including the likes of the Bangkok Blades, the Delhi Drivers, Dubai Royals, London Lasers, Los Angeles Eagles and the Melbourne Rockets.

Players including Scottie Scheffler and Cam Smith were touted as potential competitors and PGA of Australia director of tournaments, Nick Dastey, declared in the launch material that it was “an event we are passionate about and it continues to align with our innovation in the game”.  

The Ultra Golf Championship never took off.

Less than 12 months later, the entire concept was quietly scrapped without any actual notification, unlike the media blitz at launch. No teams were formed; no shots were hit.

It disappeared without much notice as the bigger, richer LIV Golf League, formed with billions of dollars from the Saudi Public Investment Fund and fronted by Greg Norman launched itself at the same time, luring major champions like Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, as well as Smith on nine-figure, guaranteed contracts.

The launch of LIV rattled the golf world and delivered daily headlines for a sport which had for so long relied on generational players like Tiger Woods and Norman and Jack Nicklaus before him to garner attention as other codes dominated the global sporting landscape.

Through LIV there were confrontations, sides were taken, enemies made. But also, neglected audiences like those in Australia and even Asia were serviced with the sort of big-time golf the myopic administrators at the PGA Tour had denied them for so long.

LIV created new discussions, demanded inward looking from those same administrators who now see a global game, with a window for international events created from 2028 and the potential for those same players long handcuffed to the year-round PGA Tour schedule able to venture outside the USA.

But just like the Ultra Golf Championship, LIV now looks headed towards the golfing scrap heap, a failed venture which launched with a brash bang but in the end found itself unable to compete what has been and looks ultimately to always be the tried and tested way of the golfing world.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil. Pic: Getty Images

As the DP World Tour demanded any LIV players inclined to play with both groups in 2027, the second being LIV 2.0 without PIF billions and smaller fields and less events and reduced purses, to choose one tour only the LIV exits were growing steadily.

Already Jon Rahm has demanded, through his lawyers, that he wants out of LIV, a decision which could ultimately see the promised $300 investment from BC partners vanish as hastily as it was promised.

Another Masters champion playing on LIV, Sergio Garcia was granted an exit from his contract while fellow Spaniard and reigning Australian PGA champion David Puig said he was no longer interested in playing with LIV.

It’s also understood an attorney for Ripper GC captain Cam Smith asked the bankruptcy court currently holding the fate of LIV in its hands whether he could get an exit from his contract.

Abraham Ancer has now reportedly made his decision not to continue with LIV 2.0, instead opting to pursue playing rights on the DP World Tour.

Tyrell Hatton’s not so subtle walk-on song at the final LIV event – Queen’s “I want to break free” told his story while his Legion XIII teammate Tom McKibbin has also told people he’s leaving.

The exits from LIV could become like a tsunami in the coming weeks with the DP World Tour putting a timeline on them signing up for membership - November 16.

That’s after the October 25 extension BC Partners gave to LIV CEO, Scott O’Neil to get player commitments for LIV 2.0, a concept that as recently as last week he said was going ahead with full steam.

The convergence of so many other factors could and looks likely to overwhelm all the public positivity on display from O’Neil, who was forced to lay off most of LIV’s staff when the season ended a week early with a team championship that barely made a dent on the golf landscape and just before LIV filed for bankruptcy.

LIV did make more than a dent but looks also like going down as a flash in the pan.

To call it a failure would be correct only in the sense it didn’t last.

But while the Ultra Golf Championship came and went without anyone talking any actual notice, LIV did disrupt golf enough to demand changes be made to the way the game is controlled and run.

LIV was the wake-up call golf needed, but as the start-up’s feature looks increasingly grim that looms as its only real legacy.