A lot has been made of Greg Norman and his impact on LIV Golf and the former PGA Tour player is sticking to his guns when it comes to his claims about LIV being good for the game.
Norman is set to step away from his role at CEO of LIV, with LIV close to appointing Scott O’Neil as his replacement.
For Norman, it marks the end of an era for him in terms of driving LIV’s growth as he hands the baton on to O’Neil.
But while the PGA Tour and others have criticised Norman for his role in golf’s split the last few years, LIV insiders are actually delighted with Norman.
And according to Norman himself, the PGA Tour should be thanking him and LIV.
Greg Norman says why LIV Golf has been beneficial for the PGA Tour
Speaking to News 8 Sport in Indianapolis ahead of LIV’s event there in 2025, Norman has said he believes the PGA Tour should actually be thanking LIV Golf, not criticising them.
Confirming his exit as CEO, Norman went on to explain how the PGA Tour have benefitted from his role.
“Competition was a great thing for them (PGA Tour) too,” Norman said. “Now they got an injection from SSG (Strategic Sports Group) of $1.5 billion. Great for the PGA Tour, wonderful.
“So everywhere you look – In the first couple years, everybody was lambasting us. And now all of a sudden, everybody’s trying to follow us. And I think everybody should take a step back and say, ‘Oh my gosh. How good has this been for the game of golf?’”
“The game is in a much better place today than it was a year ago.”
How Greg Norman helped cause chaos in golf
Greg Norman will never hold back from an opinion and in fairness to him, he does have a point about the PGA Tour getting additional investment from LIV Golf appearing.
However, he has also been a major playing in the game of golf becoming something we’ve never seen before.
The game is now about money more than ever and while prize money has always been a big thing in golf, we now have programmes like player equity on the PGA Tour and players on the LIV side signing huge contracts just to simply play.
The shift in golf has been enormous while Norman has been in charge of LIV and love him or hate him, his impact has been felt.
He has been influential in the likes of Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and more all going to LIV and he’ll leave his CEO role with his head high and his legacy in place.
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