By Alistair Collier | The Business of Golf Magazine
LIV Golf at Steyn City: What the Sustainability ESG Lens Reveals About the Game’s Governance Fault Line
The recent staging of the LIV Golf Invitational at Steyn City in Johannesburg in Gauteng, provided far more than a weekend of high-octane golf entertainment.
Viewed through the lens of sustainability ESG — the three-pillar framework that underpins the John Collier Annual Survey — the tournament offered a striking case study in institutional disruption, and a surprisingly instructive mirror for every golf club, union, and governing body in South Africa.
The Environmental Pillar: Common Ground Where Few Expected It
Perhaps the most underreported dimension of the Steyn City event was the environmental collaboration it quietly embodied.
Notwithstanding the reported tensions between
local golf structures and LIV’s organisers, the R&A and USGA Green Section worked closely with Steyn City on the environmental management of the course — through a formal service agreement, not a casual arrangement. This is precisely the kind of third-party environmental oversight the survey has consistently encouraged
clubs to adopt. However, including those which participate in the Collier Survey, approximately only 50% of South African clubs currently engage
in any such external review.
The irony is instructive: two organisations publicly at odds with LIV’s existence nonetheless cooperated meaningfully on environmental stewardship, at the very venue hosting it. The “E” in ESG does not recognise institutional politics.
The Social Pillar: A Shared but Rarely Acknowledged DNA
Strip away the noise of the competing tours’ politics and a clear convergence emerges on social responsibility.
The ultimate mission statements of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, the Sunshine Tour, the R&A, and the USGA are, at their core, remarkably similar: grow the game, improve health and wellness, uplift communities, and engage broader audiences.
Social media commentary from spectators who walked the Steyn City course was overwhelmingly positive — describing the atmosphere as electric, immersive, and unlike any golf experience they had encountered, while sponsors reported high-quality audience engagement.
The entertainment format drew new demographics to the fairways, and for a sport whose participation numbers the survey tracks carefully — and which recorded encouraging junior growth of nearly 6% in 2025 — this kind of social reach cannot be dismissed.
The “S” pillar demands that governing bodies ask not only who controls the game, but also who is being served by it.
Governance, as the Collier Survey consistently emphasises, is about decision-making transparency, accountability, and ethical leadership — not merely institutional control.
The Governance Pillar: Where the Three-Legged Chair Falls Over
This is where consensus dissolves.
Governance, as the survey consistently emphasises, is about decision-making transparency, accountability, and ethical leadership — not merely institutional control.
The arrival of LIV is a textbook case of the kind of disruption that the survey’s governance section warns clubs to prepare for: external forces that challenge established structures, expose gaps in stakeholder engagement, and force organisations to justify their authority on merit rather than tradition.
The Sunshine Tour was quoted as downplaying the tensions between LIV and local golf structures, and calls have since emerged for closer collaboration between LIV and the Sunshine Tour going forward. This is a governance conversation worth having in earnest. The Collier Survey’s 2026 recommendation — that clubs and governing bodies implement a methodology for measuring and reporting on all three ESG pillars — applies with equal force to the R&A, GolfRSA, the PGA of SA, and indeed to LIV itself.
The Broader Lesson
The Steyn City tournament demonstrated that golf’s audiences are evolving.
Many spectators want personality, entertainment, and accessibility alongside the traditions they love, while sponsors want association with genuine experiences.
The game’s governors — at every level, from club committees to the international tours — would do well to remember that governance is not an end in itself, but exists to serve the game, its players, and the communities that surround it. This is the ESG principle in its most fundamental form, and it is one on which all parties, despite their differences, should continue to strive to find common ground.
If you have any queries, why not contact the John Collier Golf through our website or via email ajcollier@telkomsa.net?
Yours in Sustainable Golf
JOHN COLLIER
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email ajcollier@telkomsa.net or visit the John Collier Golf website at www.johncolliergolf.com