LIV Golf had another active week before and after Brooks Koepka won in Singapore for his first title of the year.
Greg Norman, the CEO of the Saudi-funded league, had a couple of bold comments in an interview with Bloomberg that indicated LIV isn’t going anywhere.
He said Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund that has invested billions in the PGA Tour’s rival league, told him LIV Golf “will be well and truly in operation well past his death.”
“And he’s a young guy,” Norman said.
The Shark also tossed out the idea of LIV buying golf courses that would serve as the home venue of teams, much like in team sports. And to top it off, he challenged criticism that no one was tuning in to watch.
“What’s the definition of tuning in?” he asked Bloomberg. “To an 18-year-old, to a 25-year-old, tuning in may be 12 seconds on the phone. ‘Let me see this, then we’ll go back and do that, and then I’ll come back over here and do another 14 seconds on this.’
“That to me is tuning in,” he said. “That to me is a market that’s enormously wealthy, right? And enormously influential in the direction where we’re going.”
As for the majors, let Phil Mickelson take it from there. He saw an X post on Sunday that said LIV should make it a priority to get its players access to the majors.
Mickelson replied in a post that he later deleted: “Maybe some LIV players won’t be missed. But what if NONE of the LIV players played? Would they be missed? What about next year when more great players join? Or the following year? At some point they will care and will have to answer to sponsors and television. FAAFO.”
The abbreviation is slang for “(Expletive) around and find out.” The next day, Talor Gooch and David Puig were among LIV players to accept invitations to the PGA Championship.
It wasn’t all saucy.
LIV announced that longtime Pepsi executive Adam Harter would be its new chief marketing officer. That follows appointments of a chief financial officer, two executive vice presidents and two other hires.
It certainly doesn’t sound as though LIV Golf is going anywhere.
