LIV Golf continues to cause a major stir in the world of golf and current CEO Greg Norman has been a key driver behind all things good at the PIF-backed tour.
Norman was absolutely vital to LIV in the early stages as he attracted some of the star names to the tour with huge contracts.
The likes of Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau were among those who made the move early on and since then, the likes of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have joined.
However, Norman is now set to move on to a more commissioner type role with LIV as they seek a new CEO to develop their product further.
Still, Norman will play a key role in proceedings, including the development of the team element and adding more lucrative dates to the worldwide calendar.
And according to Norman himself, that team element of LIV is something that very much has room to grow further.
Greg Norman shares why LIV Golf captains were surprised by the team element
Speaking in an exclusive interview for Sports Illustrated, Norman covered a wide range of subjects LIV related.
And on an intriguing point, he suggested the team element of what LIV are doing is something that only just seems to be coming together for a lot of the team captains.
“What has surprised me is the overall acceptance and desire and willingness of our team captains and our other team members who want the team concept,” Norman says.
“We want to grow our teams. All of a sudden, I would go back to the 26th tournament, which would have been about May of this year, and the light bulb went off in the captains’ heads. They saw the opportunity that lay ahead of them with growing their franchise and finally realised it.”
LIV has to embrace team golf to stick around
While LIV Golf offers some unique facets like the loud music and the uniforms and logos, the team element is something that they really need to tap into more.
The team part of the LIV product is what separates them from the DP World Tour and PGA Tour and if they can really get fans to buy into it, it could be huge.
We saw how when the Rippers won in Adelaide how the crowd really got into it, and we also saw Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs win in Spain to similar acclaim.
As Norman says here, it’s going to be down to captains and team managers to push the team agenda.
But if LIV get it right, they could really be onto a long-term winner.
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