Eamon Lynch
| Golfweek
LIV Golf’s human resources team has a familiarity with revolving doors that rivals Chicago’s department of buildings, but even those overworked folks must have been momentarily confused by Greg Norman’s recent chest-puffing social media post announcing the end of his tenure with the league since he was effectively kicked to the curb nine months ago when Scott O’Neil replaced him as CEO. Still, Norman can be forgiven a little conceit, given that severance can sometimes be literal for those in the orbit of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince.
The Great White Pilot Fish wrote that he leaves “with nothing but gratitude, pride and achievement,” and presumably a healthier financial state. He was appointed CEO when LIV emerged from the shadows in 2021 and proved himself the perfect man for an unenviable job. Not in his ability to forge alliances or build a viable business, rather because he has in abundance the one trait his benefactors at the Saudi Public Investment Fund needed most in a front man: utter shamelessness.
Norman downplayed the bonesaw murder of Jamal Khashoggi — “We’ve all made mistakes,” he said, as though Crown Prince MBS had merely pulled the wrong club — and other human rights abuses by his employer, breezily noting that he’d even witnessed women eating in restaurants. The Saudis needed someone willing to brazen out questions about atrocities and sportswashing, ideally a man also harboring animus toward the PGA Tour. The job description fit Norman as perfectly as a green jacket does Nick Faldo.
“It’s been an incredible chapter, and I’m so proud of what we accomplished,” Norman wrote. “My commitment to do what was and still is the right thing for golf, the players and fans never waivered.” (At the risk of pedantry, Greg, “waiver” involves voluntarily relinquishing a right or privilege, while “waver” means to shake or quiver, as one might when facing dissection by hitmen in a faraway consulate, for example).
“As for what’s next … stay tuned! Exciting times ahead. Onward to the next adventure.”
Veterans of Norman’s posturing posts know not to read any significance into that tease since he once breathlessly touted a game-changing innovation that was ultimately revealed as nothing more than golf carts wired to the internet. “The golf industry has been starved for real innovation that encourages real change for real growth,” he declared at the time, proving that he has always had but one script for every scene. Still, Norman’s inability to feel embarrassment, willingness to recast damning data as a positive, and eagerness to embrace vainglorious autocrats ought to make him a front-runner for the next vacancy in Donald Trump’s cabinet.
Regardless of whether it’s Norman or O’Neil sitting atop the smoldering pile of cash ashes, LIV wobbles onward with boosters claiming success is at hand, much as ‘Comical Ali’ insisted there were no American “infidels” in Baghdad even as U.S. tanks rolled through the very neighborhood in which he was addressing TV cameras. The league’s fourth season having concluded, we now commence the annual rumormongering about Yasir Al-Rumayyan doubling down and signing new stars. The PIF governor’s problem is that there are only a few players whose defections could impact LIV’s trajectory — Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth — and they’re not going anywhere.
That leaves LIV with the same dog-eared playbook: sign rising stars who haven’t risen enough to be considered actual stars, or perpetually injured journeymen whose absence from the PGA Tour would be noticed only by alert insurance adjusters. In short, guys tempted by a gilded retirement without the inconvenience of having to accomplish anything along the way.
Al-Rumayyan may well spend to retain the services of those already hired, like Dustin Johnson, whose contract nears expiration, but that’s just buying time, not doubling down. He must know the current roster isn’t going to make LIV a success, that an audience of scale is non-existent, that sponsor and broadcaster interest is limited to companies PIF can strong-arm, or that don’t want to jeopardize other commercial interests in Saudi Arabia. Al-Rumayyan’s only parachute remains a seemingly improbable deal with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, which is why he jettisoned the widely unpopular Norman in the first place.
Al-Rumayyan’s pride notwithstanding, LIV isn’t essential to the Saudi goal of using sport to launder its international image, and golfers aren’t the only athletes willing to prostrate themselves as propagandists for the government. Tom Brady is among several NFL players to sign on for a flag football tournament in Riyadh next March. That event is under the auspices of the General Entertainment Authority, which is run by Turki Al-Sheikh, a close confidante of the Crown Prince and a central figure in the Kingdom’s sports ambitions. When it comes to enticing faded stars to play a faded facsimile of a sport fans actually care about, Al-Sheik has already proven himself Al-Rumayyan’s equal, at a fraction of the price. And if he needs a towel boy for Brady, there’s one ideal candidate looking for work.
