Greg Norman, the director general of LIV Golf, will “consider” the traditional 72-hole professional golf tournament format while weighing the financial implications of adding a round to the current three-day events on the new circuit sponsored by Saudi Arabia.
Greg Norman, results
As it stands, LIV Golf utilizes a 54-hole format without a cut designed to mitigate what Norman termed the “economic impact” compared to the four rounds played by the PGA Tour, European Tour, Japan Tour, LPGA Tour, and others.
Norman, seated alongside Jon Rahm in Adelaide, South Australia, where there is a new LIV event this Friday, said in a press conference on Wednesday that Rahm’s public suggestion last week to adapt to the existing format of traditional golf is not a new conversation in LIV Golf.
“I made the analogy a while ago of why I think we can end up with a great product: in European football, you have the Premier League, you have La Liga, you have the Bundesliga, you have Serie A, you have the Champions League, the Euro Cup, many other competitions. What I’ve noticed is that everyone plays by the same rules,” Rahm said. “While we play under most… rules, the only key difference is the 72 holes,” he added.
Rahm nodded towards Norman when he said, “LIV is a business. If it doesn’t fit the product, it doesn’t fit the product. I’m just a player. There are a lot of people smarter than me who can understand and explain why they think 54 holes might be better for them.”
Norman was clear on the matter: “Jon hits the nail on the head. It’s a great conversation. We’ll continue to talk about it in the future. But we sit down and say, what value is there for us to be on TV on Thursday? How can we expand it in the future? How do we get more people to the golf course? Maybe it’s Thursday, and they allow another 30,000 people to come on a Thursday. There are things we sit down and look at to see what the most optimal solution is to make this event better and better, and 72 holes are discussed.”
Regarding the stalled agreement between circuits, the ‘White Shark’ said there were no updates 10 months after the framework agreement between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was reached last June. “At LIV, we are totally out of that part of the negotiation,” Norman said.
He also denied reports that LIV attempted to lure world number 2 Rory McIlroy with an offer of over $800 million. “LIV never made him an offer,” Norman said, echoing McIlroy’s statement that the two parties were not in talks about a contract. “We didn’t need to comment on this. This is just the typical rumor circulating on social media. If Rory was willing to sit down and have a conversation with us, would we be happy to sit down with him? Absolutely, there is no difference with any other player who was interested in coming to play with us,” the ‘White Shark’ concluded.
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