A year ago, Norman started changing golf. It’s much better than I expected, he says. At the time, the LIV Golf was drowning in problems

It’s been roughly exactly a year since Greg Norman stood before a small group of invited guests in a meeting room on the ground floor of a New York City hotel. That’s when he was presented with a brand new concept called LIV Golf. Now, as CEO of the entire project, he stands before the microphones and takes stock of the inaugural season of LIV, which changed the golf world beyond recognition.

A more apt expression would be hard to find. Over the past twelve months, professional golf at the highest level has changed so much that the effects can now be described as irreversible.

The question is whether the change can be considered for the better. Despite a still large army of critics (especially from the PGA Tour), Greg Norman is pleased with his first steps. The past months have been all about getting LIV Golf out to the world.

“The players love it, the fans love it. Even the media is starting to catch on to the reality of it all. It’s much better than I expected,” gushed Norman shortly after the last tournament of the inaugural LIV season on nxtbook.

A new golf project, subsidized by Saudi public sources, tried to come up with something new. To break the established stereotype that had been around for years. LIV, however, broke much more than that, unexpectedly.

The world’s two biggest companies, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, teamed up against the new competition on all fronts. No wonder, as LIV Golf has pulled a bunch of world-class players to its side. For example, world number two Cameron Smith of Australia was still fighting for the FedEx Cup title in late August. Two weeks later, he was a full-fledged LIV player.

Of course, names like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson also caused a big stir. All of them made more money in a few months on the LIV than they did in their entire PGA Tour careers. But most critics are even more concerned about the origin of the money from a moral point of view.

LIV Golf is now facing a four-month hiatus. During that time, it is sure to be very busy behind the scenes as the whole issue has gone over the heads of all the big golf executives and has come to a screeching halt in the courtroom. There, among other things, a fundamental question will be addressed. Who is in the right? Was the suspension of LIV players on the PGA Tour justified?

In addition, the LIV will be fighting for a lucrative contract with a broadcaster to offer its golf show in a new guise further afield than through streams on its YouTube channel. Viewership there hasn’t been skyrocketing.

However, Bryson DeChambeau, for example, is one of the rebel defectors, who sees that LIV has brought many positives to the world of professional golf: “Every player here is really happy. There’ s a lot of hypocrisy in life and I just hope that we have a level playing field,” the golf puncher was referring in particular to the fact that LIV players still do not count points from tournaments towards the world ranking.

DeChambeau himself urges fans to take all the information and make their own decisions without being inspired by media opinions. He believes that every player and golf fan can enjoy the PGA Tour and LIV Golf at the same time.

Yet, because of Mickelson’s very pointed comments about the Saudis, the whole project almost failed before it even started. But he and Norman have found one common and essential path – full and better rights for the players.

Mickelson said on the cusp of the start of the LIV, when the project was still referred to by the acronym SGL (Saudi Golf League), ” The Tour likes to pretend it’s a democracy, but it’s really a dictatorship.” Nothing has reportedly changed even after hours of conversations with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Minahan. He, in fact, ensured that the defectors to the LIV were subsequently suspended.

“The decision came from the top and one day we said – Let’s go out and show the world what we’ve got. It was probably the biggest and hardest decision we made instead of sitting out the next 12 months,” he said in Miami, where LIV kicked off its inaugural year.

Asked if there was a single thing Norman would have done differently in the past year, he said sternly, ” Nothing. There’s nothing I regret,” he concluded.

Source:: LIV Golf, nxtbook