Greg Norman Shares His Goals and Vision For LIV in Interview

Greg Norman, CEO of LIV Golf, is staying in the news this week despite the Open Championship taking place without him at St. Andrews.

The World Golf Hall of Famer opened up in a wide-ranging interview with Golfweek to discuss the first two LIV events, the controversy surrounding it, and his vision for the future of the series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Greg Norman (@shark_gregnorman)

Norman said that this has been in the back of his mind for nearly 30 years before the right opportunity came along.

“In 1994, ’95 I wanted to start one because I knew being a global player at that time golf had an opportunity. There was virgin space sitting there available for the players to have an equity stake in growing another tour for their own right. I always fought for players’ independent rights for decades.” 

Norman has been plugging along with the series, signing big-name golfers like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka. All in the face of criticism from some of the world’s elite golfers, including Tiger Woods weighing in this week.

.@TigerWoods hammers Greg Norman’s new Saudi-funded LIV Golf series as not being in golf’s best interests. He says players who couldn’t resist the money had “turned their back” on the very tour that made them famous: https://t.co/aCpMaIYN4c pic.twitter.com/FWeyX4gMqv

— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) July 12, 2022

Norman does his best to shrug off the criticism.

“It doesn’t bother me how people have their opinions because they don’t know the facts.”

Two goals that Norman is trying to accomplish are for LIV Golf to earn Official World Golf Ranking points (which would help the series’ case to be included in Majors moving forward) and to establish the team concept in LIV events even further.

He hopes to expand the team concept into “franchises” that are led by one golfer that fans can get behind.

Norman explained:

“How do you create a team? You bring in a principal player, give them a franchise to build themselves. The league owns 75 percent and they own 25 percent. A healthy team, a healthy league, no different then any other league, NFL, NBA, cricket. We’re going to monitor and help them build their team value.”

Make sure to check out the full Golfweek interview for more on Norman’s plans for LIV.

Cover Image Via TheSun