Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland talks everything to do with the Australian Open, plus the War on Golf, the role LIV Golf plays in the current landscape and more. 

It’s easy to forget that one of the first duties James Sutherland had to perform when he took over as chief executive of the Golf Australia organisation in October 2020 was to cancel the upcoming Australian Open in Melbourne. It was the first non-playing of our men’s national championship since World War II and followed on the heels of the R&A calling off that year’s Open Championship. That spring felt like the worst of times and, at the peak of COVID in the Victorian capital especially, it was very much a nadir or close to it.

Four years on, and Sutherland’s tenure has coincided with the greatest boom in playing numbers the game has ever seen in Australia, largely thanks to the pandemic. Record numbers of people are embracing golf in now numerous ways. Tee-times are tougher than ever to get as demand spikes, while the evolution of simulator golf, mini-golf and more ways in which to connect with the sport highlight golf’s ability to adapt and thrive.

Yet obstacles remain. The capacity for suburban courses to fend off government and other external scrutiny is shrinking. Meanwhile, many golf clubs are still under financial duress despite rising player numbers. It’s an odd time for golf, with so much positive news from the past four years but also so many lingering challenges. Which is why now is the perfect time to ask Sutherland to take stock of where golf in Australia finds itself, from the national championship to the game’s grassroots.

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Australian Golf Digest: Which recent accomplishment by Golf Australia are you most proud of?

James Sutherland: The game is clearly in demand and is growing. Golf gets compared to a lot of sports, but golf is unique. The thing we find ourselves increasingly saying is, “Golf is big; really big. It’s getting bigger.” It’s got this significant growth trajectory that people thought was a COVID spike, but clearly we’re well beyond that and continuing to grow. Golf is different to other sports, but it’s also different to what people think it is.

So, from that perspective, what excites me and what I see as being accomplishments along the way is the way in which, through our clubs and facilities teams and our participation teams, we are playing a role to facilitate that growth. I’m not saying we’re responsible for that growth; I’m saying that we’re playing a role. If you have a look at Get Into Golf, which is our adult entry-level program, or MyGolf, they’re at record levels. MyGolf’s up 20 percent year-on-year and 40 percent for Get Into Golf.

Even quite specifically, you’ve probably seen some releases around the R&A Women In Golf Charter. We had fewer than 50 clubs – I think 30-odd clubs – this time last year. Now we’re well beyond 100, and we’ve got literally that many on the waiting list wanting to transition. That’s about clubs leaning into and embracing cultural change around a sport for all: men and women, boys and girls.

I understand I haven’t answered the question specifically, but what we are all about is supporting clubs and facilities to drive increased participation and make sure there is another generation of golfers coming through to replace us when we’re old and weary and can’t play anymore.

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How have board meetings changed for you in the past year or two?

You always have a little bit of a cycle with board meetings where you go through planning cycles, whether they’re budget cycles or getting business plans approved for the next year. One of the very first jobs I had to do was cancel an Australian Open – I think it was my first week in the job. So, for a couple of years there, COVID prevailed or was an issue, and there were some real survival issues and trying to adapt to the environment.

When we launched the Australian Golf Strategy at the end of 2021, one of the key tenets of that was about the industry working together. And you can’t work together unless you’ve got alignment and an understanding of what you want the game to look like. I think we’ve got that with a national strategy and now the ‘rubber hits the road’ on how we work together to do things.

Some of the things we’re doing with the PGA and supporting professionals in developing junior programs – the Junior Girls Scholarship Program, the Community Instructor Program – they’re all things we can’t do well by ourselves. We can do it, but we can do it much better in collaboration with the PGA, in particular, and taking that high-level view and philosophy.

We’re all about ultimately fuelling people’s healthy addiction in golf. A very small portion of the people who hit golf balls in Australia every year are members of golf clubs. Yet traditionalists who are members tend to look at golf through a lens that says it’s all about golf club membership. Golf club members are incredibly important, but at the same time they’re 12 percent of the people that hit golf balls. The role they play in supporting clubs, making clubs healthy and vibrant is incredibly important, but we’ve also got this huge base segment that are non-members that we would like to, again, feed their healthy addiction so they’re more likely to become a member down the track.

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What has been the biggest eye-opener in your four years in the role?

I sort of knew it, but I didn’t really understand it until we started gathering this national representation survey data, and a few other things we’ve done – but just the scale of golf as an industry. As we all understand, you can measure the size of a sport in different ways: TV viewership, revenue or what have you. Every time this data comes through, I’m amazed at the momentum, but also the scale. I think golf has genuine claims to be the biggest sport in the country, and I can show you data that suggests it is – 3.8 million people hitting golf balls in the past year. There’s not many sports that have that many people participating.

Sure, the revenue of Golf Australia and the PGA is nothing like the AFL. But if you have a look at it a different way, we did that economic, environmental and social study last year – $3.3 billion of community benefits, but inside that there’s $10.3 billion of consumer expenditure on golf in a year. No sport in the country has anything like that.

Yes, our sport is fragmented and it’s not like one of the big, high-profile sports where a lot of the power is centralised through television rights and media. We are fragmented and we’ve got 1,600-and-something clubs, facilities and private operators that are operating backyard simulators and all of that. There’s a dispersion of different ways in which golfers can engage with the game, but the scale of golf as an industry is extraordinary.

This off-course stuff is a phenomenon. There’s been a 20 percent increase in off-course golf in the past 12 months in its different formats. So, golf… has something for everyone. Quite frankly, from my perspective, I can’t help but feel optimistic about the game and its future.

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Why did it take until July 4 to announce the dates and venues for this year’s Australian Open?

Obviously, we came out of COVID and we had two men’s Opens cancelled, one women’s Open. You’ve probably heard me explain some of the history, which I think is highly relevant to any discussion. So that’d be my long-winded answer, which is not what you are looking for.

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Just for comparison, in the previous two years, one was the end of April and one was the end of May that we knew dates and venues.

And we had contracts from both governments that were in place already, that were existing pre-COVID. They had to be somewhat renegotiated in order to fit in the Women’s Open, and that caused some of the delays. But the reality is, for this year, we didn’t have a contract that pre-existed.

It went back seven years and expired at the end of last year. We had, of course, tried to get to a situation where we could have that renewed with one or another government from somewhere across the country prior to that, but we hadn’t got to that stage. So I can assure you it wasn’t of our sole doing that we didn’t have something in place because we would’ve loved to have had something in place earlier.

The support from state government, in this case the Victorian Government and Visit Victoria, was incredibly important to the sustainability of the event and our ability to put it on at the scale we would like. That was a priority we needed to work through – not just with Victoria, but with other states that were interested. And you land when you land.

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Can you envisage a day when the Australian Open will be able to operate without government or a tourism body’s backing?

Ultimately, you want to have as much flexibility as you can in putting on events. In many ways, the state government – in this case Victoria – they’re effectively a major sponsor and supporter of the event, just like ISPS Handa are and others. Golf in Australia and our major events aren’t blessed with television revenues that some of the other major sports get. There’s lots of reasons for that, which we won’t unpack right now. But the reality is, in the absence of television revenue – and we do get a little bit of revenue, including some revenue from overseas through the DP World Tour – you’re therefore reliant on commercial support and government support.

The reason why some of the biggest sports aren’t relying on government is because they’ve got the commercial revenue streams from TV. And we don’t have that, so we rely very heavily on government and our commercial partners. So in the short to medium term, the importance of government will remain. We’d love to have choices, but that’s how it is right now. If things change, they change, but right now that’s what it is. And quite frankly, the event itself without the support of state governments looks very different.

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Player feedback about the mixed format is… mixed. Which feedback has resonated with you most?

More broadly, we’ve always had a focus of trying to protect the integrity of the three golf tournaments – men’s, women’s and all abilities – and making sure the people that set up the course and other aspects know and understand that in balancing three different tournaments over two courses, that those sorts of integrity issues need to be sustained and maintained.

In that first year (2022), understandably, there was a lot that we learned in terms of player services. As well-intentioned as everything was, there was some things there that we could have done better and we have done better. All the feedback last year was very positive. The PGA runs the tour here in Australia, they run the Australian PGA Championship the week before. So, my view was, Why don’t they look after the player services at the Australian Open as well? Which is what we did last year, and it all transitioned very quickly.

We’ve got Antonia Beggs now, who’s our head of major tournaments, including the Australian Open. She’s worked for the European Tour, she’s been intricately involved in Ryder Cups and other things. She’s got relationships with the DP World Tour and obviously experience in golf that allow those conversations between us and both tours – the WPGA as well – to go smoothly.

People forget, I think we had an unfortunate situation where we had to have a two-tee start on both the Saturday and the Sunday of the Australian Open last year, but that wasn’t of our doing. The intent was absolutely to have a one-tee start, but unfortunately we had thunderstorms forecast on both the Saturday night and Sunday night. Saturday night, they came; Sunday night, they came after play had finished. They were the unfortunate circumstances that created a few quirks. But that can happen in tournaments anywhere. It just so happened for us last time.

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Is the mixed format here to stay? Have we gone down a path we won’t be turning back along?

I don’t think we’re in that situation at all. I think we are where we are right now for reasons of history that people shouldn’t forget. We had a really difficult period through COVID. We lost co-sanctioning with the LPGA. We established, for the first time ever, co-sanctioning with the DP World Tour in order to get the event back up and going.

We were losing significant money on the women’s event. People forget, the women’s event’s got a 50-year history, but in one-third of those 50 years, the event’s been cancelled or not held for reasons that largely come back down to economics. So, I think the ideal situation is that both the men’s tournament and the women’s tournament stand on their own two feet, as being successful and proud celebrations of Australian golf. At the moment, they are together. And all the feedback from commercial partners, broadcasters, government and the fans suggest that they love that format.

Last year we had as big a crowds as we’ve had for 15 years at the Australian Open and our commercial partners are really keen to continue to embrace it in that format. But at the same time, where there are other possibilities, ideally you could get back to a situation on the women’s side where it’s an LPGA-sanctioned event, it’s part of an Asian swing. You can’t do that when it’s joined with the men’s event, because you don’t have the space with the number of players. So, we’d love to get back to that situation, but how do you do that when you’ve lost your slot [in the LPGA schedule] and it’s not sustainable or economically sustainable in its format?

On the men’s side, again, we’d love to find a way to have the men’s event elevated on the tour, or part of… who knows how the world comes back together again. If we can attract high-profile international players, we know that makes a difference. You just look at what’s happened with LIV in the past couple of years in Adelaide bringing high-profile players. Australian golf fans will watch that. They will celebrate them and they’ll come and watch. They’ll travel to, in this case, Adelaide to do it. They’ll watch it on TV. We’ve seen that.

Of course, that’s really easily said. The other thing is whether [the players] are actually prepared to come and whether we can afford to pay them. You’ve got to create an economic model that either works for them because of prizemoney or exemptions or other things they can win from being here, and/or the appearance fees and other things. In the past few years the whole world of golf has changed significantly where players have got their schedules and those on the US PGA Tour and those on the LIV tour are getting paid twice, three times more than they were pre-COVID. We know what the numbers are and it’s certainly not something that fits within our budget at the moment, but we’ll continue to look for opportunities.

Part of it also comes back to: under what circumstances can you see the two events standing alone and sustainable? And to be frank, that’s where we’d like to be. We want to be in that situation. Part of that proposition and getting there is putting on a great Australian Open in whatever form it is. Some of the comments that came out of Paul McGinley or [Augusta National Golf Club] chairman Fred Ridley around that – we know that Joaquin Niemann, his success in the Australian Open was actually the catalyst for him to get invited to the Masters. We know the esteem in which our tournament in Australia is held and our great golf courses. That’s what we’ve got to look forward to this year, to be playing at Kingston Heath and Victoria, two of the great courses of not just Melbourne but Australia and arguably the world.

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You mentioned LIV Golf. Could you ever see a time when LIV might work with Golf Australia when it comes to the Australian Open, possibly with player invites and aligning dates?

Who knows? We need a bit of a crystal ball, don’t we, to see how things unfold. At the same time, we need to respect our existing relationships – we are co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour. I don’t understand and it’s beyond my pay grade as to what the arrangements or limitations are in terms of DP World Tour, US PGA Tour. They’ve got arrangements together.

So, we would be open to that, but first and foremost we’re very respectful of our relationships with the DP World Tour as our co-sanctioning partner on the men’s side. They’ve been absolutely fantastic supporters of our tournament. Scheduling-wise, there’s opportunities opening up with moving away from South Africa. There were clashes last year there. We would hope we have even stronger depth and a more international field.

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What do you think needs to happen to make golf clubs more sustainable, other than selling off their land?

There’s no bite-sized answer to that. We talk about it internally a lot. While we talk about 1,603 golf clubs and facilities in Australia, the reality is, every single one of them is different. They’re unique in character, they’re unique in their relationship with the land they’re on. Some own a freehold. [Sandy Golf Links] is on council land, for example. All those things are different. Some are in the country with sand greens, entirely volunteer run. Some have professional staff, and are large business enterprises turning over tens of millions of dollars.

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Has the Moore Park situation highlighted how, in some senses, no golf course is untouchable?

We know in the world we live in, nothing’s a given and nothing should be taken for granted. But it’s all the more reason for us to be explaining more broadly why golf is so big and it’s getting bigger, and it’s more and more relevant to the lives and lifestyles of more and more Australians.

Land is precious and precious land will always come under scrutiny when leases come up or there are other reasons for that debate. We can’t shy away from that, but what we can do is put our best foot forward and explain our case, tell our story well. Those that argue to the contrary don’t understand golf and we need to educate them on the role it’s playing in that economic, environmental and social sense. And health – if people over the age of 50 aren’t playing golf, what sport are they playing? There aren’t a lot of sports left for them.

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We have just three Australian male amateurs ranked in the top 200 in the world. The structure of the World Amateur Golf Ranking appears to be doing our players few favours…

It’s definitely not my strong suit and to answer that question, I’d probably have to take that properly on notice. But I do understand that at a high level, there’s a weighting that applies in the world rankings – not just in amateur ranks, but also the professional ranks – to certain types of tournaments and the depth and breadth of the field. It’s not just true of Australia, but other parts of the world where we have a smaller golf community. In a relative sense the strength of the field’s diminishing, which means the weight of amateur performances don’t carry as much mustard. And that’s the impact. The consequence of that is to run high-performance programs that allow amateur players and professional players more opportunities to play and get starts in tournaments where they can earn those points that get them up the rankings, which creates more opportunities.

The problem with that, of course, is it costs a lot of money. Sending someone – particularly amateurs – away to play in overseas tournaments, it’s an important part of what we do, but it’s also really expensive. And post-COVID, travel has become even more expensive. We continue to review it. We’re clear on that. But at a higher level, we’re ultimately interested in players who are going to be top 50 in the world because they’re the ones we believe shift the needle in terms of fan interest, which then translates into participation growth. Those that are top 50 in the world are likely candidates to win majors and there’s nothing that shifts the needle like Australians winning major championships. 

Next month: An interview with PGA of Australia chief executive, Gavin Kirkman

Feature Image: PGA Australia/Gregg Porteous