LIV Golf not going anywhere; “totally separate” from PGA Tour, PIF negotiation
Since LIV Golf launched in the spring of 2022, golf has been in flux, with the game’s best players competing on two separate circuits.
Many other issues exist within this reality, too. Money, equity, and, given who LIV Golf’s beneficiary is, moral issues and geopolitical ramifications have all bled into the sport.
Nevertheless, in an attempt to rectify this, PGA Tour brass and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) established a framework agreement on Jun. 6, 2023, that not only shocked the sporting world but also set a pathway for the two sides to come together and re-establish a unified golf tour. Negotiations have occurred since then, but a finalized deal remains far away.
Yet, LIV Golf did not appear within that framework agreement then, and they do not have any influence on those negotiations now, according to LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman.
“I would love to give you insight, but I don’t have any. We at LIV are totally separate from that part of the negotiation,” Norman said in South Australia ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Adelaide event.
We at LIV are a standalone company being invested in by the same investor interested in the game of golf. Our investor wanted to invest in LIV because he loved the opportunity of the franchise model, what he could do with it, and how we could build it out on a global platform.”
Since last June, Norman has continued to champion LIV Golf’s cause, indicating on numerous occasions that its strength as a start-up league has never been stronger.
Nobody knows how LIV will look or how it will fit into professional golf’s new structure should the PGA Tour and the PIF strike a deal.
But Norman remains as confident in LIV Golf as he ever has. He said he received numerous compliments at Augusta National, where he lingered among the patrons at this year’s Masters Tournament. Norman said dozens of people approached him there and told him they love what he and LIV Golf have accomplished.
“The support, the recognition, the comments that were made, it was almost unanimous for three straight days walking around with people,” Norman said.
“To see it and to hear it and to hear the comments they made about what’s happening to the game of golf and the go that LIV has brought to the game of golf, it was very, very strong for me. It was a very powerful three days.”
