I arrived at The Grange Golf Club on Tuesday, having visited in January to be walked through and talked through the infrastructure and logistics ahead of the ‘build’. Even with that foresight, I was blown away by the scale of the tournament upon arrival. In one (hyphenated) word, it’s major-like.

Australian Golf Digest scored a group in the pro-am, and walking the whole course as a caddie on Wednesday – before the public was allowed in – provided a genuine inside-the-ropes perspective of the golf course and surrounding infrastructure even without the crowds. Today, with maybe 25,000 or 30,000 people now inside the gates, the atmosphere is electric. Again, it’s major-like.

The music filtering across the course is more soothing than jarring, to a point that you stop noticing it after a while. The galleries feel the vibe, too, so I’m sure the players enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere. No matter your place here – player, caddie, gallery member, media member, volunteer, stakeholders (including South Australia’s disarming premier Peter Malinauskas) – you can’t escape the multiple ways in which this tournament feels different.

Kieran Vincent hit a ‘wide’ into the fan area beside the third hole. [Photo: Kat Martyn]

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There are other ways in which LIV Golf reveals its differences. The crowd offers a telling insight. The number of children here is encouraging – no doubt aided by the school-holidays timing, but also through the clever activations in the Fan Village. Looking around the galleries, they look far less ‘golfy’. At most tournaments, the crowd is filled with fans in golf shirts and golf-branded caps. Here, the attire is far more regular, suggesting a lot of non-golfers are present.

What the crowd says is a giveaway, too. I saw one woman point to a walking scorer’s scoreboard for the Stinger GC trio of Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Dean Burmester – who at the time sat one, two and three-under, respectably – and ask her sister, who was standing next to her, “So which score is best?” Her sister replied by saying, “You might be the only person here who has to ask that question!” It’s the kind of thing a sibling might say, but it’s probably not true. I’m sure plenty of other attendees have no idea how golf scores work, but that’s perfectly OK. This tournament is exposing golf to a whole new audience in a way that engages in more ways than the sporting endeavour alone.

LIV Golf Adelaide attracts people to the game who might not otherwise attend a golf tournament. [Photo: Steve Keipert]

Then there’s the food-and-beverage side of things. At precisely 1:18pm – 123 minutes after play began – I watched a cart taking piles of already-full rubbish bags away for disposal. Earlier, I’d spotted a nest of empty cans under a bush beside the third fairway. Consumption begins early at LIV Golf, whatever your poison.

It didn’t take long for the rubbish bins to fill on day one. [Photo: Steve Keipert]

A new addition this year is the ‘Flight Deck’, a two-storey stand overlooking the driving range where players can hit balls from the top tier with fans gathered below. While Australia’s Lucas Herbert and Marc Leishman warmed up this morning, Herbert’s tee came flying down and bounced off the bill of my cap.

The Fan Village is expansive – indicative of the extra space a 36-hole facility affords – and the sheer number of attractions. The merchandise offerings, while on the pricey side, are extensive. Where else can you buy Ripper GC-branded ‘budgie smugglers’?