LIV Golf is currently involved in litigation with the PGA Tour, having joined last month a federal antitrust lawsuit filed against the PGA Tour by 11 LIV golfers. The group, which includes Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, claims the PGA Tour engaged in anticompetitive behavior and harmed their livelihoods by suspending them for playing in LIV events.
In comments published Thursday by The Australian newspaper (via Agence France-Presse), Norman said that as he was helping LIV Golf get off the ground he repeatedly sought to engage in discussions with the PGA Tour. The circuit on which he once reached the world’s No. 1 ranking was more focused, Norman said, on keeping its top players in the fold than on working with his Saudi Arabia-backed upstart.
“That’s why we are where we are today,” Norman declared.
Despite threats of suspensions from PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan dating back to at least May 2021, then his follow-through on that stance, LIV Golf has managed to sign a number of prominent players, reportedly with nine-figure, guaranteed-pay contracts. In addition to Mickelson and DeChambeau, LIV Golf snared other former major winners in Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bubba Watson, and 2022 British Open winner Cameron Smith recently became the latest big name to defect.
Norman said he and his team “tried awfully hard” to engage PGA Tour officials over the past year.
“When we knew we were never going to hear from them, we just decided to go,” he said. “We have no interest in sitting down with them, to be honest with you, because our product is working.”
According to ESPN, which cited a source Thursday, Norman’s outreach to the PGA Tour included a letter he sent to Monahan in February and a voice mail Norman left shortly before LIV Golf announced its 2022 schedule.
In the letter, which was made public, Norman accused Monahan of “bullying and threatening” players with suspension threats, which Norman described as “likely in violation of the law.”
“I know for a fact that many PGA players were and still are interested in playing for a new league, in addition [his emphasis] to play for the Tour,” Norman wrote then. “What’s wrong with that?”
Norman echoed that thought in Thursday’s comments, telling The Australian that instead of being a “breakaway” operation, LIV Golf was “always an additive to all tours.”
“This notion we’re trying to destroy tours is not true,” he said. “The PGA Tour is trying to destroy us, it’s as simple as that.”
In a memo to PGA Tour players last month following the lawsuit by LIV Golf players, Monahan continued to refer to that series as the “Saudi Golf League” while describing the legal action as “an attempt to use the TOUR platform to promote themselves and to freeride on your benefits and efforts.”
In a June appearance on CBS during a PGA Tour event, Monahan had claimed that LIV golfers “need us so badly … because those players have chosen to sign multiyear, lucrative contracts to play in a series of exhibition matches against the same players over and over again.”
Asked at a news conference Thursday if he could see LIV Golf “overtaking” the PGA Tour, DeChambeau told reporters that he “would never want that to be my goal” and that the LIV series “never wanted to do that.” Norman and his staff “had to play their cards the way they’ve had to based on the way the PGA Tour has reacted,” he said.
“Again, we’re going to — they’re not putting the iron fist down,” added DeChambeau, who claimed he had no “buyer’s remorse” about joining LIV Golf. “I don’t think they will. There’s no need to. But I personally believe that over time, they will come to a resolution. There has to be. It’s only in the best interest of the game of golf down the road.
“What LIV Golf has provided is something new and unique, different,” he continued, “and with that to be said, there’s going to be some disruption and people aren’t going to like it, and I respect every single person that doesn’t “I don’t think it’s good for the game of golf.”
Rick Maese contributed to this report.