Hole-in-one: How Westfield secured flagship LIV Golf event

The bid to bring one of the top 2025 events in burgeoning men’s golf league LIV to Westfield was well served by the impression central Indiana left on its executives during the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in June.

But the journey started months earlier.

The tour this week said The Club at Chatham Hills will host LIV Indianapolis Aug. 15-17, serving as the individual player championship round and regular-season finale. The event, which could draw as many as 30,000 spectators over three days, is the first professional golf event scheduled for the par-72 course since it opened in 2014.

England-based LIV spent nearly a year evaluating its options for an event in Indianapolis or a northern suburb; a source told IBJ that includes Carmel’s Crooked Stick, which has hosted several PGA Tour events, and a pair of other undisclosed courses in Marion and Hamilton countries.

Throughout that period, the tour also evaluated several other cities—in the United States and in other counties—for events for its 2025 and 2026 calendars.

Steve Henke, who built the Chatham Hills course through his firm Henke Development, fought to persuade LIV CEO Greg Norman and other executives to host the event at his Westfield course, starting with a phone call he fielded from tour officials early this spring.

“When we got the first phone call, it was like, ‘Really?” Henke said. “It was exciting that they were really interested in our course, so we immediately went all-hands-on-deck and set up a meeting. We thought about what an opportunity [it would be] if we could do this, so we nurtured that, meeting with them, establishing relationships with them.”

Henke and his staff, including his daughter Elizabeth, who leads development, finance and acquisitions, made trips to Dallas, Houston, Nashville and White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia—home of The Greenbrier resort—to spend time with LIV leadership and learn more about the tour and its approach to the game.

Henke Development has committed to investing $2 million in upgrades to the Pete Dye-designed course, the clubhouse and pro shop, and other property amenities. Henke worked closely with Norman on the course improvements to ensure they didn’t disrupt Dye’s original design; Norman and Dye were close friends and competitors in golf architecture. Dye’s son, who now designs courses, provided Norman a project manager to consider improvements for Chatham Hills.

“It was really an honor to spend a lot of time with Greg,” Henke said. “He’s very humble, very down to earth. We got along just great. One of the things he emphasized from the beginning was his admiration and respect for Pete Dye, and that he did not want to make any changes to the course that in any way would affect Pete’s design.”

Henke also told LIV officials he thought the city might be willing to put up money to support the project.

Westfield Mayor Scott Willis said he was first asked in May to join the conversations by Henke, who had scheduled a meeting for the tour’s leadership team at Chatham Hills. At the time, Willis was in Houston for a conference.

“So I flew back, and the next day, we had dinner with a couple of the executives from the LIV organization. And it just led to a very long process of us … eventually making the pitch and landing Chatham on their radar screen,” Willis said.

Over the next several months, Norman and other LIV executives made multiple visits to the course and met with Henke, Willis and other elected city officials, including Westfield City Council President Patrick Tamm, who is also CEO of the Indiana Restaurant and Lodging Association trade group.

Willis and Tamm both credit Henke and his family as the driving force behind the deal.

“The Henkes in particular have really just gone after this and, obviously, very successfully,” Tamm said. “They are really looking to make sure it’s a phenomenal event.”

‘That was pretty wild’

Tamm said he thinks LIV’s Norman was further sold on hosting an event in central Indiana after he made a trip to the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in June.

During that nine-day event, Norman sat among other swim fans and saw firsthand the effort central Indiana puts into hosting sporting events. During that trip, at a dinner Tamm attended with Willis, the Henkes, Karen Radcliff with Hamilton County Tourism Inc., and Hamilton County Commissioner Mark Heirbrandt and multiple LIV executives, Norman commented on the volunteer efforts and the red carpet the city rolled out for USA Swimming and its athletes.

Another LIV official at the table told Norman that Indianapolis is known for that level of hospitality and that he was confident the city could host the tournament, Tamm said.

“We had somebody [from LIV] that had experienced the benefits of our volunteer and our organizational ability and just the sheer commitment that the community has,” he told IBJ. “That was pretty wild.”

Henke agreed that Indianapolis’ hosting reputation influenced Norman and his team.

“That’s a big, big part of things—Indianapolis has always been great at providing volunteers and ensuring people show up for these events,” he said. “I think that was all a big impact … in helping make their decision.”

The deal for LIV Indianapolis is a one-year contract between the tour and Henke, whose firm is based in Zionsville. LIV has a single-year renewal option for 2026.

During negotiations, LIV bound most of the involved parties to confidentiality agreements. And Tamm said a few sticking points were sorted out even in the closing weeks, including the timing of the announcement. Initially, Westfield expected to share in mid-October that it had been selected for the tour, but the date was shifted multiple times. Eventually, the city acquiesced to LIV’s desire to publicize its full tour slate at once, with details of the Westfield event shared during a separate news conference.

In addition to Henke’s investments, which include lengthening the course by about 250 yards, adding bunkers and minor improvements to the clubhouse—LIV is expected to receive at least $1.25 million in incentives over two years, assuming the tour exercises its extension option.

That includes a $500,000 payment from the city of Westfield for public safety and marketing. The Hamilton County Sports Authority will provide at least $250,000 and in-kind hospitality, and the Indiana Sports Corp. will contribute as much as $500,000 from the state’s sports and tourism bid fund, which it administers.

Sports powerhouse?

The event is expected to fill hotel rooms beyond Westfield—including the JW Marriott, Conrad and other downtown Indianapolis properties, as well as the Hotel Carmichael in downtown Carmel. Players and their families and some VIP guests are likely to rent houses at the course or elsewhere, Tamm said.

Nearly 3,900 hotel room nights are expected to be booked across central Indiana for the event.

Karen Radcliff, chief strategy officer for Hamilton County Tourism Inc., which houses the sports authority, said the agency wasn’t directly involved in key negotiations but was made aware of the LIV’s interest in Hamilton County after Willis was summoned back to Westfield from Houston.

She said the tourism group was later brought into discussions to assess the viability of a potential LIV event as well as the impact it would have on Westfield, both operationally and financially. Hamilton County Tourism also pitched ideas for ways the city could engage fans throughout the weekend.

Westfield officials predict the event could generate $20 million to $30 million for the Indianapolis area.

“Westfield has always punched above its weight class,” Radcliff said. “It’s never asked ‘why?’ but instead, they’ve always said ‘Why not?’ It was true when we built Grand Park [Sports Campus] and when we landed the Colts training camp, and it’s definitely true now with an international golf event such as LIV.”

The 400-acre Grand Park, which opened in 2014, has 31 soccer fields, 26 baseball diamonds, two administration buildings, seven concession stands and a 378,000-square-foot multi-use event center. The Indianapolis Colts moved their annual summer training camp to the park in 2018.

In June, FIFA selected Grand Park as one of 24 potential locations to serve as a team base camp training site during the group stage—or early rounds—of the 48-country World Cup soccer tournament that will be played in the United States, Mexico and Canada in June and July 2026.

The city is also considering the development of a corridor that would add retail, housing, hotels, gathering spaces, a boardwalk with a canal, and an indoor ski facility to the Grand Park area over the next decade.

And it’s reviewing a $1.2 billion project known as Grand Universe for land between 186th and 191st streets. The science-focused area would feature four districts and science, technology, engineering and math-related installations involving rockets, rocket boosters, engines and outer space. Among the investments would be a 170,000-square-foot Grand Universe Center for Science and Space Exploration, including a full-dome planetarium. The second phase of construction would include a sports-focused district and a commercial and mixed-use development with multifamily housing.

The city is also continuing to add hotels, including the top-line L7 Westfield hotel from Seoul, South Korea-based Lotte Hotels and Resorts.

A ‘raucous environment’

Westfield is one of three U.S. cities on LIV’s 2025 regular-season schedule, joining Dallas and Chicago. The tour also plans to expand to Korea next year.

LIV Golf tour stops differ from traditional PGA events, in both format and atmosphere. LIV plays 54 holes over a weekend—the name is the Roman numeral for 54—compared with the PGA’s 72-hole events. Each event features 54 players that tee off at the same time across each of the course’s holes.

It also has a more fan-focused environment than does the PGA, Willis said. Fans are encouraged to cheer and make noise when players are hitting the ball. The stop is also expected to include a concert on Saturday night, following course play, as well as interactive experiences and other fan activities. The event will include special offerings for families and children; the LIV tour puts kids close to the action and encourages them to engage with golfers.

LIV wants “a high-charge and raucous environment for the tournament, so it’s much more engaging with the fan base,” Willis said. “Fans are allowed to get more excited about what’s going on on the course.”

The Westfield event is likely to feature several big names, such as Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia and Brooks Koepka, all of whom have been part of this year’s roster.

LIV, which launched in 2022, has been in talks with the PGA about a merger since 2023, but the deal has been delayed as the sides work through multiple hurdles, including antitrust regulations and scheduling conflicts. The tour has also been the subject of scrutiny since its launch because of its financial ties to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Willis said he doesn’t have many concerns about the connection to Saudi Arabia, adding that he’s focused more on what the event could mean for Westfield in the long run.

“Pretty much all of the top golfers right now are playing in this tournament, and many of them are Americans,” he said. “If we can host that kind of event in our community, I don’t know why we wouldn’t do that.

“At the end of the day, whether it’s Saudi-backed, U.S.-backed, or backed by any other country … if the Saudis have put together a tournament that usurps PGA, good for them. We live in a place where those things are encouraged. And I certainly am not going to not support something because of that.”•