Greg Norman and Mollie Marcoux Samaan were both hired in 2021 and will both leave their respective roles in 2025.
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The last 12 months had it all – crazy winning streaks, big new champions, a major weekly arrest (!) and more. With 2025 on the horizon, our writers are looking at the most memorable moments from 2024.
no. 15 – Charley Hull goes viral
Golf’s Greatest Moments of 2024 No. 14: In the wild golf landscape, 2 bosses are leaving
Not long ago, many believed that Jay Monahan was on the hot seat in his role as PGA Tour boss. But as we turn the page to 2025, Monahan is still around, and the Tour is still(!) trying to figure out its future in the golf landscape.
But Greg Norman and Mollie Marcoux Samaan are out. Or at least it will be soon.
Norman, the sometimes controversial CEO behind LIV Golf, confirmed this month he will no longer be CEO of LIV, a post he has held since the league’s inception in 2021, with a new face set to take over sometime in 2025. His first public comments since the change came just a few days after Marcoux Samaan announced suddenly she will step down as LPGA commissioner in January. She was hired in May 2021 and will leave before her contract ends.
The similarities, for the most part, end there. Norman was a crucial cog in shaking up the pro-golf landscape, getting LIV Golf off the ground and helping recruit talent away from the PGA Tour. Marcoux Samaan wasn’t exactly throwing wrenches into the golf ecosystem.
Josh Berhow
However, they had a common goal – expanding the scope of their tours and making them more relevant. You could argue that this is a major task for any CEO in any role, but it was especially true for this duo.
Norman had to change his mind. His opponents didn’t like the Saudi PIF funding his league, or the fact that Norman had a hand in diluting men’s golf. But Norman did well to lure big names like Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau and especially Jon Rahm, whose signing came less than a year after he won the Masters.
Marcoux Samaan didn’t have to deal with the baggage that has come with disrupting the professional golf ecosphere, but she was tasked with getting more eyes and bigger purses for the women’s game. To Marcoux Samaan’s credit, prize money on the LPGA tour grew more than 90 percent under her leadership, and next year the sport’s five majors will offer a combined purse of nearly $50 million, roughly double the to what was offered in 2021, the year it began. .
But Norman and LIV never secured a major TV deal to maximize viewership (and help credibility), and despite Marcoux Samaan helping players put more money in their pockets, critics wondered whether she and the LPGA could had done more to take advantage of Nelly. Korda’s historic season and rise to superstardom in women’s sport. There was too ship fiasco in the Solheim Cup and criticism from a crucial sponsor.
