Golf’s answer to T20 cricket coming to London

When LIV burst into the sporting galaxy it promised to be “golf, but louder”. So what do you call golf that lasts just three hours and has been described as the sport’s version of Twenty20 cricket? 

The answer, it seems, is Blitz. Established in Australia back in 2018, Blitz Golf shot to prominence when cricketer Travis Head sunk a monster putt just hours after the final Ashes Test in Sydney earlier this year.

Simon Zybek, founder and chief executive, tells City AM that now is the time to expand beyond Australia and into England.

Blitz Golf will today announce a UK schedule, seeing events in the West Midlands, Lincoln, Leeds and at London’s Bush Hill Park.

“We’ve always had [goal of] getting to England as our first global market which is what’s exciting,” Zybek says. “And here we are. The key here is a tournament that anyone can win.”

The format is simple: 12 pros and 12 non-pros – mostly athletes and celebrities – play six holes before the field is cut in half. After a further three holes there’s another cull. 

Eventually a cool £10,000 is on the line after the 10th hole. The twist is that two of the 24 participants, in an echo of the Australian Open’s One Point Slam, will be rank amateurs.

Blitz Golf the answer?

They’ll qualify through social media and club competitions, while the other 10 non-pro spots will be taken up by golf influencers and celebrities – with Blitz Golf lining up names from football, rugby and cricket. 

“Our audience,” the Australian chief adds, “is proven to capture a very similar crowd to LIV in some respects, but we capture a lot more non-golf fans as well.

“It’s a three-hour entertainment product where we had a lot of sports fans, family and just event goers coming along as much as the golf fan. So we cater for a broad audience of spectators, which is what the appeal is.

“The fact that you’re coming along, golf is happening, but all the other elements of the day as well, is really exciting for the fans.”

Events at Leeds Golf Centre, Gaudet Luce Golf Club and Lincoln Golf Club will take place in June while the penultimate weekend at Enfield’s Bush Hill Park Golf Club is an evening contest.

Zybek says that last year’s series in Australia attracted 25,000 fans over several events and believes similar crowds could turn out in the UK despite Blitz Golf taking its first steps in the European market.

“Honestly it could be anything from 3,000-5,000,” he says. “We just had 4,000 in Adelaide in Australia. They’re more mature products, and they’ve been around longer. But on the flip side of that is that we’re coming to England with a bigger marketing team, bigger marketing budget, and England’s got a larger demographic, more densely populated.

“It is more sports savvy in terms of getting around things like this as well. We’re doing everything we can to get those sorts of crowds, and I think it will be perfect.”