With no guarantees LIV Golf will even remain an entity beyond 2023, the golf upstart’s brash chief executive Greg Norman says the controversial breakaway league is not going anywhere.
The irony is that when the PGA Tour, PGA European Tour and LIV Golf officially merge, following the surprise agreement in June to pool their resources, Norman is not expected to be a part of the new for-profit venture.
Norman, though, remains loyal to LIV Golf, telling executives of major corporations being wooed as sponsorship partners that LIV has plans to not only operate well into the future but to become an influential aspect of the sport.
“(There are) a lot of headwinds, but you got to get those headwinds because when people started to understand what we got — and you can speak to the players about this later on — they got it straight away,” Norman said to corporate executives at a New York gathering this week, in a recording obtained by the Washington Post. “They recognized it, they saw the PowerPoint presentation, they understood into the future.
“They weren’t looking one year into it, two years into it, three years into it — they were looking many years into it.”
When the merger with the PGA Tour was announced, the only guarantees for LIV was that it would finish out its 2023 season. What is certain to remain beyond this year is the financial support the PGA Tour will receive from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which invested a reported $2 billion to get LIV Golf off the ground in 2022.
That tie to Saudi Arabia is what turned off many PGA Tour players into joining the new league, with some, like Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, criticizing players who made the move, even the players he considered close friends.
The draw for many was guaranteed money, shorter 54-hole events and the assurances of playing through the weekend with no-cut tournaments. Some players received hefty signing bonuses, including a reported $100 million for Phil Mickelson.
LIV Golf attracted some of the sport’s top names at the outset like Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Cameron Smith and Lee Westwood. And while the defections have slowed, Norman made assurances that more are coming, even if he might be escorted to the door.
“Just continue on the pathway where we are right now,” Norman said, when asked about LIV’s future. “I’m getting calls today about other players wanting to come. Been getting a lot of interest from that myself, personally.”
–Field Level Media