Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods won’t be sad to see the back of Greg Norman when he is moved aside as LIV Golf’s figurehead. The Australian has been the controversial tour’s CEO since its launch in 2022 but is set to be replaced by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the financial might behind LIV.
The 69-year-old will move into another role within the company after his replacement is appointed. Norman has regularly annoyed PGA Tour loyalists, including McIlroy and Woods, since the birth of LIV, which triggered an all-out civil war in the sport.
Relations have thawed to the point that a merger is close and Norman’s impending job switch could accelerate talks. It will certainly go down well with McIlroy and Woods. The former declared Norman “needs to go” when the acrimony between the two factions was at its height.
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The four-time major winner said: “I think he just needs to exit stage left. He’s made his mark, but I think now is the right time to sort of say, ‘Look, you’ve got this thing off the ground, but no one is going to talk unless there’s an adult in the room that can actually try to mend fences’.”
While McIlroy’s stance towards LIV has softened, he said earlier this year that Norman’s conduct had done the PIF a “disservice”. Ahead of talks between PIF chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Tour’s six player-directors, McIlroy said: “I have spent time with Yasir and the people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice, so [Greg] Norman and those guys.
“I actually think there’s a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalise that investment, I think that will be a really good thing.”
Woods made a similar call for Norman to go after LIV and the PGA Tour tried to sue each other. Asked if LIV could co-exist with the sport’s traditional tours, the golfing legend said: “Not right now, not with their leadership, not with Greg there and his animosity towards the tour itself. I don’t see that happening.
“As Rory said, I think Greg’s got to leave and then we can eventually, hopefully, have a stay between the two lawsuits and figure something out. But why would you change anything if you’ve got a lawsuit against you?
“They sued us first. I see that there’s an opportunity out there if both organisations put a stay on their litigation but that’s the problem, they’ve got to put a stay on it. I think it has to start with leadership on their side.”
The angst between Woods and Norman dates back further than LIV though. Norman once claimed that Woods wasn’t good enough to be selected for the US Presidents Cup team in 2011.
In 2019, following Woods’ iconic Masters victory at Augusta, Norman revealed he had hand-posted a written note to Woods to congratulate him, only for the message to be ignored.
"When Tiger won the Masters this year, I wrote him a handwritten note and drove down my road and hand-delivered it to his guard at his gate,” Norman told Men’s Health.
“I said, 'Hey, this is Greg Norman here. I’ve got a note for Tiger – can you please hand-deliver it to him?' Well, I never heard a word back from the guy.
“When I won my first major championship, Jack Nicklaus was the first person to walk down out of the TV tower and congratulate me. I don’t know, maybe Tiger just dislikes me."
