Greg Norman is belligerent to the end and keeps fighting. LIV Golf’s chief executive has stated that the breakaway league “is not going away” but will thrive due to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s merger with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.
Norman was not involved in the peace negotiations between Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund and chairman of LIV, and three members of the PGA Tour board of directors, including Commissioner Jay Monahan.
In fact, it’s believed the Australian wasn’t at all privy to the talks, only learning the bombshell minutes before the announcement was made public. And with both Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods stating an agreement can only be reached if Norman is absent, it’s difficult to imagine the two-time Major winner playing any dominant role in the new line-up.
But while the respective parties are discussing the details, Norman appears to still be sitting in the LIV hotseat and seems determined to represent a positive front.
“The rooster is now wide open for commercial sponsorship, blue-chip companies and TV broadcasters,” Norman told LIV staffers on a conference call Wednesday ahead of McIlroy’s scheduled pre-RBC Canadian Open press conference, according to SI. “LIV is and will remain an independent company. Our business model will not change. We changed history and we’re not going anywhere.”
With more than 100 employees at the headquarters in Florida and London, Norman has probably only boosted morale, not least his own. It is understood Performance 45, the England-based agency, will remain involved, having essentially run LIV since former COO Atul Khosla left under mysterious circumstances in late 2022. In January, Telegraph Sport announced that Norman had been promoted up and has done so since largely in a figurehead role.
It will be exciting to see if 68-year-old Norman retains that position in the second half of LIV Season 2, which will feature seven more $25M events concluding in Jeddah in November. By then, the League will know if it has a place in the new world order, even if Monahan’s statements to the media bode ill for the League.
When Monahan was asked if he could envision a situation where LIV would coexist alongside the PGA Tour in its current form in 2024, he wasn’t sure.
“I can’t imagine that scenario, but I haven’t received the full assessment, the full empirical assessment from LIV that I’m going to do to comment on it,” he said. “But I don’t see that scenario, no. In my opinion, any scenarios you are considering as a bridge between the PGA Tour and LIV would be longer-term in nature.”