In the sharing of golf liv, what did he learn, what is next

The last time the Ryder Cup was in the United States – WhistleIn late September 2021 – Phil Mickelson was in a US team uniform and Greg Norman was promoting the basics. Shark was there commenting on Siriusxm, but all the time his mind was for another matter.

“Liv Golf,” Norman said in a telephone interview on Tuesday morning. “Well, not Liv Golf, because we didn’t have that name. Project X. I had been in another Ryder cup, but this time I was really hit by passion, US cheering and all this. It was a home game for SH.BA, and you guys had lost the last.”

You had to grow it! The previous Ryder Cup was that in Gay Paris (or remote suburbs) in 2018, where Europeans dismantled Americans, 17.5 to 10.5. You can remember Tiger Woodscoming out of an incentive win in East Lake, playing like a mummy there. He may have been being sunny during a team press conference. Well, it’s understandable.

However, again in Norman and what he received from that week to whistle straits:

“I saw for the first time that American players had these associations, based on where they went to college or pods where they played inside or whatever, and the Europeans had it because they represented the tour they grew up. So it was this really powerful team concept and all this passion. He worked, if we hugged this team, ”and I knew this team. “

Since this month, Norman has shared ways with Liv Golf. He was the commissioner and its CEO since its inception in 2021 until its contract expired last month. In January, Scott o’neil became CEO of Liv Golf.

Along with Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, Norman is one of the most significant figures in Golf Golf today. He was so closely linked to Liv Golf that you might have thought Norman was given, at least, a ceremonial public role with Liv Golf for the rest of his days. But the holiday has been a clean. Norman was asked if this was what he wanted.

“This is something you have to ask Scott O’Neil,” Norman said.

Keep it, hold it, hold it: was this Greg (let’s go out) Norman by the phone from the Bahamas – or was it an expert impersonator? When did he learn to be so discreet?!

“Oh, you’ll be surprised,” he said. “Over the years now, I’ve had a lot of conversations with the silence cone down.”

You have to respect every member of the world golf hall, especially one of Australia, who can make such a light reference to one of the best dresses from the ridiculous American television series, “Get Smart”.

When British Open, the world’s great championship that Norman won twice was last held St. Andrews In 2022, Norman was not invited to a dinner before the former winners tour because, for semi-official R&A, His presence would be a “distraction”, Due to Norman’s role as the face of the Upsart Liv Golf League.

Norman said he had heard that Tiger Woods did not want him there, and that Woods told R&A officials that if Norman would participate, he would not. “But I don’t know that’s what happened,” Norman said. “Just what I heard.”

What is there with this new, super, suited Greg Norman? If this is normal new, there will be a serious adjustment period for veteran golf writers, plus a moment of silence for everything it has lost!

Indeed, no matter what you think of Liv Golf, it’s hard not to think about Norman as one of the most charismatic and significant figures of golf. Decades between the end of 1949, when Tom Watson was born, and in early 1960, when Paul Azinger appeared, it produced a wide range of engaging personalities that led the game from its three major years. Those players include Ben Crenshaw, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Nick Price, Payne Stewart and Bernard Langer – and Norman, born in 1955. On a global base, Greg Norman was the leader of that package. Around 1997, Woods took Norman’s place, occupying the play throne, around 1997.

For 25 or more years, Norman did not understand why Woods has opposed Norman’s efforts for friendship. Norman’s connection with Liv Golf has probably not helped. Woods is the vice president of Enterprises PGA Tour The board, he is the chairman of the next PGA Tour Competition Committee and he is a member of the PGA Tour Board of Directors. He is the last figure of the foundation of PGA Tour, and the only living person with 82 PGA Tour wins. This massive number is an elementary part of its heritage.

Norman, in a 65-minute telephone interview, talked about the role he played in the recruitment of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson Dechambeau and Patrick Reed at Liv Golf. “It was the players, their managers, their lawyers,” he said. “They really didn’t understand what it means to be a global brand. I did.” He said one of the biggest challenges was to explain the possible benefit of team ownership because it was so out of their experience.

Dechambeau, as a developing PGA Tour player, appeared in bridgestone advertising with Woods, and had long driving sessions where they stood next to each other. Reed, due to his Sunday dresses inspired by Tiger and as a captain’s choice for the 2019 Tiger President’s Cup team, had a close association with Woods as well. Norman was asked if he had ever heard or express any reservation about leaving PGA Tour out of loyalty to Woods. “No,” Norman said. “Not at all.” He described both as independent thinkers.

“One of the things I admire for Patrick Reed is his Moxie,” Norman said. “Bryson is very cerebral, always understanding things about himself.”

Norman said the whole landscape of professional golf today would be different Jay MonahanAs the PGA Tour commissioner, they were willing to hear what Norman and his colleagues Liv Golf were proposing four or more years ago. “I think he was responding to her in an emotional way, and that’s never good in business,” Norman said. It is an interesting observation, because as a player, when he was winning and when he was not, Norman’s emotional state was in public show for everyone to watch – television cameras, fans on ropes, cadets, other players. His emotional way helped him, hurt him and did.

“If Jay received our calls, I think the Global Golf Ecosystem would be fairer today,” Norman said. “You would have a private venture capital to come into play, as we have now, but it would have been distributed to more players.” Liv Golf has 54 players in each tournament. Many major PGA Tour events have gone from the fields that, according to tradition, once had 120 or more players in tours with 70 or 80 players on the field. The spread of wealth, as a broad idea, is an interesting observation by Norman because, in his prime minister played, he had been a lawyer for a star -led tour.

In 2032, the Summer Olympics will be held in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, where Norman was born and raised. He is on the 24 -member organizing committee for those games. He said that since his departure from Liv, he is focusing on his broad global businesses, which he said they have flourished in his Liv years when he did not actively engage with them every day. “We got a hit in the US market, but our business has come out throughout the Pacific,” Norman said. “SH.BA is an extremely important market, but the world golf does not start and ends with the United States.

Norman said, with his departure from Liv Golf, that he was focusing again on his work as an architect of the Golf Course. He said he has a lot of work in Vietnam and expects more and predicts that the ban on building a golf course in China will be set up soon, and that Norman and his design people will be the first through the door when he is.

Norman predicted the Ryder Cup in Bethpage Black It will be a fierce competition, much closer than the Ryder 2023 Cup in Rome, when Europeans won, 16.5 to 11.5. He said New York’s bold crowds can make changes, as home team fans often do in every team competition. He said he admired American captain Keegan Bradley, whom he described as a “outside the system” person as Norman. But he also noted that the European team had two Livi players, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, both elected by European captain Luke Donald, while the US team has only one Liv player, Bryson Dechambeau, who made the team at the point. (Each captain had six free choices.) “I will ignite it, here and there,” Norman told Ryder Cup coverage.

Norman was asked what he saw as his biggest achievement as CEO and the first Liv Golf commissioner. “Golf behavior for more people in more countries around the world,” he said. This, and bringing money to private capital to the game.

He was asked how he thinks global professional golf will look like five years from now. “Nothing like what is now,” Norman said. For one thing, he said, new CEO PGA Tour Brian RollappThe self-described “significant change” agent will want this to happen, and private capital will require it.

He described Yasir al-rumayyanSaudi business leader who has overseen a massive investment in recreational golf and Livi’s golf, as one of the most significant figures in his life, along with two unnamed lawyers, “One in Dallas, one in Miami”, which Norman said he played the main roles in taking Liv Golf outside the ground. For the best part of five years, Greg Norman was in a team. Now he is returning to Shark, his appropriate nickname and his emblem in a million golf shirts. Wait to see it around for a long time.

“My mother is 94 years old and she is in excellent condition,” Norman said. “I look forward to living to be 120.”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments in Michael.bamberger@golf.com