Gav Kirkman, it is this writer’s duty to inform, is a good fellah and fine company. Golf Australia magazine enjoyed a round with the man at NSW Golf Club in September when he and his team launched the 18-tournament Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia.

Out on the course there were yarns about dealing with player agents, yarns about attracting Bryson and the big dogs of golf, yarns about red wine being spilled on him at Augusta National and the staff’s efforts to launder his shirt.

We talked of the Australasian Tour, events all across the country, from Players Series ones hosted by Min Woo Lee and Greg Blewett, to the PGAs and Open championships of the states. And it’s clear: Australasian Tour golf is #winning.

And though Kirkman, or anyone, had no idea Cam Smith and Lucas Herbert would be embarking upon a goodwill tour of regional Australia, it was all good news, and interesting shop-talk, and the man was pleasant, you could even say convivial, company.

Get our Gav in front of a microphone, however – or, in our case, a Zoom call from Golf Australia Towers – and you can get Mr Kirkman, buttoned down chief executive. He is smart and careful with his words, of course, as befitting a big cheese, for he understands their power. He will call you by your first name, praise a tricky question with “good question”, and look to bring you, and by extension you, dear reader, along for the ride.

Thing is, though, Gav could drone for Australia. His voice modulates only minutely, up and down the octaves, whether he’s talking pathways, piss-ups or the PGA Tour. It is genuine delivery, and it is who he is. If he’s being disingenuous, I’m too dumb to see through it. But it’s pillow talk for insomniacs.

But then, and it’s instructive, when you read back through the transcript of the chat, you’ll find yourself nodding along, even reconsidering what you had once considered bedrock belief. Kirkman’s delivery may be dryer than so many Sao biscuits, but there’s heft and depth to his statements.

Example? Some months ago, as I’m wont to do in these Trumpian, post-truth times, I got into a tête-à-tête on the Twitters with a colleague about the PGA’s positioning in the Great Golf War of our Times. I had asserted in a column that Golf Australia and our PGA had actually boxed clever and remained “Switzerland”, and that Australian golf was reaping benefits of the fever-dream that is LIV Adelaide.

My colleague was not having that. “You’re giving them far too much credit. If sitting on a cheque for $US5 million when they could have negotiated four-times that, and then sitting back and having things fall in their lap is great leadership, then you’ve fooled me,” he said.

“Greg Norman, for all his flaws, has carried Australian golf through the mire not once but twice, and there’s barely acknowledgment of LIV or him for that in any of their communications. I get that Australia has next to no bargaining power in world golf, but at least show some courage to stand up and be noticed.”

To which I replied: “Whether it was Machiavellian scheming, leadership, soft-cockery or sheer dumb luck – or all the above – they’ve landed Australian golf in a pretty good spot. Not sure they ever had to promote Norman’s startup, nor acknowledge what he was doing, particularly as it may have antagonised their partners-come-paymasters. Maybe they could say something, even just thanks to Sharky and LIV. But imagine how Norman would spin it. There’s a reason he’s not involved in the ‘merger’.

“Anyway, I just think saying nothing – and again if it was cowardice or stupidity or arch scheming – is almost beyond the point. They can declare good news on their watch, sort of like a government taking credit for good economic data when they do nothing except watch the coal price go up.”

And we agreed to disagree, or at least stopped throwing gibber-jabber back-and-forth for no reason bar catharsis.

Golf Australia magazine puts some of this to big chief Kirkman on the Zoom; and asks him to explain Australian pro golf’s place in the greater LIV versus PGA Tour Enterprises “war”. How does he describe the relationship between PGA of Australia and “establishment” golf? Are they allies? Observers? Conscientious objectors? Taking $5 million U.S from one side doesn’t make you Switzerland, right?

Kirkman acknowledges the PGA did receive “support” from the PGA Tour, but says people are missing the point of why the PGA went the way it did.

“I think what everyone’s forgotten is that in 2021 we announced that we were moving into a strategic alliance with the DP World Tour, which has a vertical relationship up to the PGA Tour,” Kirkman says.

“So, we announced that, and we committed to the five-year term of that alliance before LIV came on board. We were already committed.”

Yes, Gavin. But all that money? Why not talk to LIV Golf?

“We have. We have had subsequent discussions with LIV. But, at that stage [in 2021], our board and senior management, we looked at what our players wanted,” Kirkman says.

This year’s “Michael Block” is PGA Tour journeyman, Harry Higgs. PHOTO: Getty Images

What do they want? Upward mobility, for one. To golf where the money is. To eat where the big dogs feast. According to Kirkman, there are 220 players on the PGA Tour of Australasia. They want opportunities – in Australia and overseas.

“They want pathways to make their way across to other tours, international tours. That could be Japan, Asian Tour, Challenger Tour, DP World Tour, Korn Ferry Tour, upwards to the PGA Tour,” Kirkman says.

“The majority of our young players coming through want to play the PGA Tour.”

Kirkman acknowledges that “LIV Golf is great for our sport” and is “shaking the sport up”.

“But it’s looking after four of our players at the moment. There have been a few others [Jed Morgan, Travis Smyth, Wade Ormsby] who have had playing opportunities,” Kirkman says.

“So, we had to make a decision and align with what was going to be best for our players, our current players back then, and our future players who want to play well.”

And onto the Good Ship DP World Tour Australian golf has sailed. And at this year’s Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland, at the time of writing (21 days before the first drive will be struck), the international players headlining the event were 20-year-old South African Aldrich Potgieter, Chilean Korn Ferry Tour winner Cristobal Del Solar, and the American famous for tearing open his shirt on the stadium hole at TPC Scottsdale, Harry Higgs.

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Last year at Royal Queensland, the high-profile internationals at the PGA Championship included Scotsman Robert McIntyre and Jhonattan Vegas from Venezuela. Joaquin Niemann of Chile came to Brisbane off his own bat and was thus not featured in PGA Championship promotional media. A borderline anonymous man from Japan, Rikuya Hoshino, was runner-up in both our “major” championships.

This year, a clutch of DP World Tour players – Rafa Cabrera Bello, Jordan Smith, our own David Micheluzzi – will be teeing it up at RQ alongside Aussies Cameron Davis, Cameron Smith, Jason Day, Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert and defending champion Min Woo Lee.

It’s a tasty enough field without being The Players pre-LIV, even if Adam Scott, and it’s a whole other 3000-word feature piece, is a no-show.

Alas, without Asian Tour or LIV Golf alignment – and millions of spare dollars – LIV stars Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm will be playing elsewhere or fishing for tarpon in the azure waters off Majorca. So, ask Gavin Kirkman: What would it take to get these high-profile LIV guys down? Do you just reach out to their management, see how much they want? Is it that simple?

Pretty much, apparently.

Though they do try to throw in a few sweeteners.

“We have had discussions with all their managements,” Kirkman says. “That is one thing we do when we are fortunate enough to go to the majors. The big focus of the week when we’re attending majors is to spend time with player managers and build relationships.

“But we’re trying to make sure that, if we’re playing our two major Aussie events on quality golf courses, that’s a big, big factor for them to come down. To be playing at Kingston Heath, and Royal Queensland, and Victoria Golf Club is huge for us at the moment.

“And then we also try to say, well, come down and spend time in Australia. As far as tourism destinations, would you like to have a break? Do you want to visit? Have you heard of the Whitsundays?

“We package up as much as we can to see if they’ll come down and play golf and win one of our big events, but also have a great experience in Australia. Because we’re a great country. We also run good events, and they’re pretty comfortable.”

Australian golf can usually rely on our Australian superstars to return, out of loyalty if nothing else. But Adam Scott’s no-show this year is telling. PHOTO: Getty Images.

And then it’s up to them. Or at least their managers, who won’t be that fussed without their cut from a seven-figure appearance fee. There could be business-class flights and an adventure Down Under, as Michael Block enjoyed last year. 

A lot of it, though, comes down to how much golf the world’s top players want to play. This was an Olympic year, there was a Presidents Cup. The PGA Tour finished in September and began again in September. And those tarpon won’t catch themselves.

The issue for the PGA of Australia, and Golf Australia, which runs the Australian Open, is maintaining a balance between a sustainable event which generates a surplus, and paying seven figures for “star” players. The total prize purse for the PGA Championship is $2 million. Pat Cantlay’s management would want that to turn up.

Kirkman says the focus is getting the best Aussies and Kiwis home to play, complemented by the occasional global star. “From time-to-time, if we can get a superstar player, whether it’s Rory McIlroy or Bryson DeChambeau, or one of those players, we would go to our partners and say, there’s an opportunity for this player to play in the field.

“We’ve then got to work out the impact that player will have, as far as to get a return on investment if you’re going to play a procurement fee of up to seven figures. And then you’ve just got to put it through a process. And then you’ve got to have someone that’s really going to have an impact.

“Are they going to generate a 20 percent spike in fans on the ground? Are they going to create more commercial interest in the event – fan based, the spend around the tournament from merch to corporate hospitality?

“But we always ask the question. And then we take it back and put it through our process of stakeholders and partners within the event to see what the appetite is to bring that player down.”

Kirkman, like all golf fans, would love for international players to support the Australian tour. There is hope – which feels more like audacious dreaming – that over time our tour will work with the big tours, and when the global golf ecosystem gets closer together, do something like what they do in tennis – when there’s a major on, the star players support the satellite events, too.

But, well – if Adam Scott isn’t likely to come, it’s hard to see Ricky Fowler teeing it up in the NSW Open at Swan Hill. Kirkman admits “golf is still not there yet”.

“The players are sole traders. They all have player managers. They work within the tours, but only the big tours have the full control of their minimum playing rights, of how many tournaments they’ve got to play to support that tour. They have to get a release to play another event,” Kirkman says. 

“But it’s something that we’d like to see happen.

“In the meantime, we just want to continue to build sustainable events.”