Greg Chalmers: Australian golf can benefit from LIV tour

Greg Chalmers has been on just about every leaderboard around the world at some time, and at the ripe old age of 49 he is about to knock on the seniors circuit.

Back at Royal Queensland — where he broke through for his first professional career win in the 1997 Australasian Players Championship — Chalmers is pumped to tackle this week’s Australian PGA Championship featuring headline act and world No.3 Cameron Smith along with 2012 US Masters champion Adam Scott.

Rated a $151 outsider by online bookmakers, Chalmers has cut back his tournament play drastically in recent years but still retains his competitive nature.

While he would love to play well this week and contend, his focus is on preparing for a tilt at the PGA Tour Champions — the world’s premier seniors circuit — if he gets his chance.

“I haven’t played a lot of golf, I’m sort of on the back end, I’m sort of waiting now to see if I can do any good playing 50-year-old golf,” the former top-50 ranked golfer told BettingSite.com.au after a practice round on Tuesday.

“That old course (at Royal Queensland) no longer exists and while those memories are not dead, they are somewhat not relevant.

“I played 10 times this year and I played about the same last year.

“I’ve really enjoyed a smaller schedule because I’ve played like 720 golf tournaments.

“I’ve enjoyed being home with my family and the number of tournaments I play work out fine right now.

“I’ve got some back issues (arthritis in five joints in his spine) and I need to keep on top of but it’s more being around the home.

“For a long time during COVID I didn’t go anywhere and I really didn’t mind, which is a sign you probably need to be home more.”

Chalmers — who was born in Sydney, lives in Perth, and bases himself out of Dallas, Texas — said he always liked to play well when he came home to Australia.

“I wiped off some cobwebs hopefully last week at the Queensland PGA at Nudgee,” he said.

“I played pretty ugly so hopefully there is some improvement on that.”

Chalmers had an interesting view of how Australia was placed on the world golfing landscape with the emergence of the new LIV Golf tour.

“The US tour was quick to get back on the fairways when COVID first broke out and it was pretty impressive to watch how they handled it.

“It’s been tough down here (Australia) but I think our PGA is doing a great job of bouncing back in the last few years, getting events back up and running, improving purses, and giving guys opportunities to move on and taking steps towards playing outside of Australia.”

READ: Cam Smith humbled by local support ahead of Australian PGA

Chalmers felt Australia was in a great position to capitalise on the LIV tour, which will stage an event in Adelaide next April.

“Australian golf could certainly benefit from LIV with the plans they have and people getting to see world-class players which in the past we have had to pay them a lot of money to travel Down Under,” he said.

“This LIV will pay the bills, which is great for fans of the game.

“That exposure to the world’s best is what gets kids involved and kids wanting to play.

“I still remember the first time I went and watch ‘The Shark’ (Greg Norman) play, it was a big influence on me wanting to be a good golfer.

“That’s important and it can’t be lost.”

Chalmers said the Australian tour was still a “stepping stone” for young players to get onto a worldwide tour.

“These guys (young pros) can use this tour to get an opportunity to play on tours in Europe, Japan, Asia, or America,” he said.

“That’s what I did, I got into Q-school based on performances here, and that opened doors along the line.

“It’s a wonderful thing that the PGA does for our players.”

For Chalmers now, though, it’s all about turning his focus to the seniors tour.

“I’ve still got to qualify, I’ve got to go the final stage of Q School (next November) with 150 players chasing five spots, it’s one of the hardest ones,” he said.

“If not, we can still do Monday qualifying every week, so that’s an option, we’ll see how we go.”

A win here this week, however, could change all that.

“That would make a big difference, it would be off to Europe we go,” he laughed.

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