Greg Norman On Murder And Beheading Prone Saudi Arabia: "We've all made mistakes" And "I heard about it and just kept moving on"

Apparently LIV Golf Commish Greg Norman hasn’t sat down to read the details of Jamal Khashoggi’s killing lately. But according to Rick Broadbent of The Times, he continued is case for murder as politics and committed his latest gaffe with regard to the LIV Golf tour/league’s financing.

Norman, the frontman for the series, said: “Everybody has owned up to it, right? It has been spoken about, from what I’ve read, going on what you guys reported. Take ownership, no matter what it is. Look, we’ve all made mistakes and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward.”

Hard to correct when the body has never been found and was dismembered with a bonesaw.

This answer was also stupendously bad even by the standards of someone who called himself the living brand.

The two-times Open champion, who said he had never met Bin Salman, was also asked how he felt when he heard about the execution of 81 men in Saudi Arabia on March 12. “I got a lot of messages but quite honestly I look forward,” he said.

Messages? Oh?

“I don’t look back. I don’t look into the politics of things. I’m not going to get into the quagmire of whatever else happens in someone else’s world. I heard about it and just kept moving on.”

Let The Legal Wrangling Begin! PGA Tour Denies Waivers For LIV Events

The expected showdown over LIV Golf’s Portland stop ended before it began.

Instead, the PGA Tour expedited the inevitable showdown with the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf by denying player waivers to the upcoming LIV Invitational outside London. While many expected the Tour to allow their players that lucrativeplaying opportunity, a memo sent to players—and plenty of media who’ve apparently joined the player email list—explained the Tour’s position. The statement to players was sent at 6:30 p.m. ET and it’s tight! From GolfDigest.com’s Dan Rapaport story:

"We have notified those who have applied that their request has been declined in accordance with the PGA TOUR Tournament Regulations. As such, TOUR members are not authorized to participate in the Saudi Golf League’s London event under our Regulations," PGA Tour Senior Vice President Tyler Dennis wrote to players in the memo. "As a membership organization, we believe this decision is in the best interest of the PGA TOUR and its players."

The key words seem to be Tournament Regulations and “membership organization.”

LIV Commish Greg Norman found time after a busy daydigging new landmines while promoting the London stop to issue a lawyerly response. Bob Harig at MorningRead.com has it:

“Sadly, the PGA Tour seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf, unless it’s exclusively in a PGA Tour tournament. This is particularly disappointing in light of the Tour’s non-profit status, where its mission is purportedly ‘to promote the common interests of professional tournament golfers.’ Instead, the Tour is intent on perpetuating its illegal monopoly of what should be a free and open market," Norman said.

"The Tour’s action is anti-golfer, anti-fan, and anti-competitive. But no matter what obstacles the PGA Tour puts in our way, we will not be stopped. We will continue to give players options that promote the great game of golf globally.”

We can tell Greg didn’t write this because it was devoid of mindless “grow the game” references and contradictions from one sentence to the next.

So where does this leave the showdown?

Lawyers making money!

GolfDigest.com’s Joel Beall talked to a few legal types regarding the PGA Tour’s right to block players and, well, it’s complicated.

More curious about all of this in the short term? Consider:

  • The DP World Tour is more immediately threatened by the upcoming London event and likely to see some of its better players wanting to play. But thanks to the PGA Tour they did not have to act first.

  • The PGA Championship is next week and perhaps the PGA Tour felt it would be better for their partners in Frisco to get these headlines out of the way now instead of having players get asked for an update on their release? AT&T is crapped on all the time so why not once more?

  • The 6:30 p.m. ET memo to players came after Norman admitted earlier in the day that the rival tour is a rival tour with long range commitments, not just some alternative opportunity for independent contractors who’ve long dreamed of shotgun starts. Perhaps the Tour’s lawyers had their reason to green light the release denial?

Norman revealed eight days ago that players were still under contract to play LIV Golf’s events. Presumably the contracts are not telling them what to wear.

"To this day, we still have players under contract and signed," Norman said. "The ones who wanted to get out because of the pressure of the PGA Tour gave back their money and got out. Guys had money in their pockets."

Presumably the contracts outline what exactly is required to see Saudi Arabia’s money in their accounts. We can only presume this means mandated appearances to play golf tournaments, not deliver readings of their favorite philosophy books. A cynic might even think these contracts serve as an advance for committing to an exclusive Saudi league with a binding franchise commitment that Norman made official in multiple interviews Tuesday.

Norman told the BBC these are “baiter” events coming up. Generally one uses bait to catch things?

Norman explained that his initial Invitational Series is just a beginning. "Twenty-two and 23 are our baiter years. We are a start up, basically," he said.

"I think people will realise the platform we have out there, the ability of the fans to get a better experience for the players, the stakeholders. Our production budget is mind-blowingly impressive."

A baiting start-up and better experience. Sure sounds like a rival league, one that might allow the PGA Tour to enforce its regulations.

Time and lot of lawyers will tell us who has the right to do what. But it sure sounds like the LIV folks were eager to assure players that their Saudi sugar daddies were in this for the long haul, freeing up Jared Kushner-level money and said a little too much too soon?

Saudis Commit Another $2 Billion Into LIV, Names Not Revealed For First Event To Air On YouTube

The LIV Golf folks admirably opened their Commissioner to questioning following news of a staggering infusion of more money and to roll out world ranking numbers hoping to play the June 2-9 event outside London. One huge catch: Commissioner Greg Norman is a terrible interview and continues to do his best to sink this ambitious ship. Assuming you expect consistency, clarity, vision, non-B speak or a sense this is something to be taken seriously.

And the grow the game references are almost a nervous tick at this point. Another sign no one has been able to tell him the phrase is a way of announcing to the world, “I’m a stooge with no one around me to say stop using that inane, phony, shallow phrase.”

The latest rollout’s details.

  • According to Bob Harig at Morning Read, “LIV Golf Investments received 170 entries for the June 9-11 event at the Centurion Golf Club outside of London, with 36 ranked among the top 150 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Several amateurs, who have apparently worked out NIL (name, image and likeness) deals, will also be part of the 48-player field.”

  • Not a single player name was released. Norman said 19 of the top 100, and six of the top 50 are committed. Again, before releases were granted.

  • These field numbers, cited by Norman in multiple interviews, have been made before all releases from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have been granted. With the DP potentially saying no to as many as 40, the numbers may take a hit.

  • Norman announced a new “infusion of $2 billion from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia that will help launch its eight-tournament schedule this year, a 10-tournament slate in 2023 and the league, which in 2024 and 2025 will have 14 tournaments that include 12 four-man teams. Norman is in London for a promotional event tied to the first tournament.”

  • This is new money on top of the initial investment that appears appears meant to show a commitment beyond this year and next but also comes with players needing to commit to a league concept starting in ‘24.

  • A league concept sure goes against any kind of independent contractor situation, potentially undermining LIV’s legal case when coupled with previous Norman admissions that players are under contract.

Norman gave interviews to Sky Sports and BBC where, at best, he was all over the map.

Facing tough questions from Jamie Weir, Norman was wildly inconsistent spinning the the funding sources track record.

Norman said that he understood people's concerns about the source of the money funding the tour and the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, but added that the country was making a "cultural change from within" and that he specifically has no ties to the government.

"100 per cent [I understand]," Norman said. "And it's reprehensible what happened with [Jamal] Khashoggi. Own up to it, talk about it.

"But if you go back into Saudi Arabia, they're making a cultural change from within to change that. They don't want to have that stigma sitting over there.

"The generation of kids that I see today on the driving range, they don't want that stigma going on into generations and their kids. They want to change that culture and they are changing it.

"And you know how they're doing it? Golf."

I believe that’s what they call sportwashing, as Weir noted. Greg said no.

Norman added: "I'm not going to get into politics, I don't know what the Saudi government does. I don't want to get into that. Every country has a cross to bear.

"They're not my bosses. We're independent. I do not answer to Saudi Arabia. I do not answer to their government or MBS [Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud].

"I answer to my board of directors, and MBS is not on that. Simple as that. So that narrative is untrue."

Wonder who he thinks the board reports to?

Maybe the Crown Prince got a standing O at the last PIFSA annual meeting for his choice of sandal?

The full interview is a wild mess of contradictions:

"The generation of kids that I see today on the driving range, they don't want that stigma going on into generations and their kids. They want to change that culture and they are changing it.

"And you know how they're doing it? Golf."

Norman added: "I'm not going to get into politics, I don't know what the Saudi government does. I don't want to get into that. Every country has a cross to bear.

"They're not my bosses. We're independent. I do not answer to Saudi Arabia. I do not answer to their government or MBS [Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud].

"I answer to my board of directors, and MBS is not on that. Simple as that. So that narrative is untrue."

"Their commitment to the league when it gets to 2024 is because they will own part of a franchise. They'll be able to go: Okay, I want to be traded for 'X'. They will be creating value within that team. The value today that doesn't exist for any player, anywhere in the world.

"It's up to them to make that decision. Personally, I wish I had this opportunity.

"We are not trying to destroy the Tour. 100 per cent not. I will fight to my death on that one. I'm still a lifetime member of the PGA Tour."

Speaking to BBC’s Iain Carter, Norman is backing off the use of disruptor or disruption and now calling 2022 and 2023 as LIV’s “baiter” years. “We are a start up, basically," he said.

With seed money from a regime that loves to cut people’s heads off after a not-fair trial.

Carter asked about television and high ticket prices for the initial events.

"I think people will realise the platform we have out there, the ability of the fans to get a better experience for the players, the stakeholders. Our production budget is mind-blowingly impressive."

He then revealed the opening event in Hertfordshire will be shown on YouTube. "Centurion will be streamed live," he said. "We have a lot of linear and OTT [over the top] people wanting to come in with us. We are under NDAs with nine of them."

NDA’s…except with YouTube!

Throughout the interview he insisted the primary objective is to "grow the game" and deferred to ticketing agencies for ground pass prices that start at £69.22 per day and £52 for students. By way of comparison, ticket prices for last week's British Masters at The Belfry started at £40.

"Ticket people make those decisions," he said.

Ah that’s the hands on, take all responsibility type of leadership you love to see!

More Details On PGA Manningcast: Buck And Collins Host, Guests To Include Aikman, Allen, Couples And The Mannings

First reported last week by the New York Post and confirmed by Joe Buck on Twitter, the minds behind ESPN’s successful Monday Night Football “Manningcast” are bringing the concept to the 2022 PGA Championship.

The details of an aggressive effort—four hours a day—now include confirmed guests. The full release:

Joe Buck, Michael Collins To Host First of Its Kind PGA Championship Alternative Telecast for ESPN 

Celebrity Guests Joining Telecast Include Troy Aikman, Josh Allen, Charles Barkley, Doris Burke, Fred Couples, Jon Hamm, Peyton & Eli Manning 

Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, Production Company Behind Monday Night Football With Peyton and Eli, to Produce Telecast in Conjunction with ESPN  

ESPN is bringing a new additional viewing option to golf for the first time in its coverage of the upcoming PGA Championship with an alternate telecast - PGA Championship with Joe Buck & Michael Collins - that will complement the event’s traditional television production. 

The new telecast, produced by ESPN in collaboration with Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, follows the success of the innovative and critically acclaimed Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli alternate telecast this past NFL season.

The alternate telecast will be hosted by Joe Buck, who recently joined ESPN to anchor Monday Night Football next season, and ESPN senior golf analyst Michael Collins, the host of the ESPN+ program America’s Caddie. Buck will be making the first ESPN appearance of his new deal.

PGA Championship with Joe Buck & Michael Collins will air during all four days of competition in the May 19-22 tournament and feature an array of guests to offer running commentary and conversation as live play in golf’s second major of the season unfolds at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla. 

Peyton and Eli Manning will be among the guests on the telecast during the tournament. Other guests who will appear across the four days of coverage will include Troy Aikman, Josh Allen, Charles Barkley, Fred Couples, Jon Hamm and ESPN’s Doris Burke with more guests to be announced later.

“Working with Omaha Productions, we are producing a telecast that is designed to reach a new and different audience and elevate the appeal of the PGA Championship even more,” said Lee Fitting, ESPN senior vice president, production. “We feel that this will ultimately help grow our viewership and provide fans with another fun and creative way that they can enjoy sports.”

“We loved doing Monday Night Football with ESPN and the entire Omaha team has been looking forward to producing alternate telecasts that celebrate other sports,” said Peyton Manning. “As one of golf’s majors, the PGA Championship is a perfect place to do our first one for golf and we look forward to working with Joe, Michael and everyone in ESPN’s golf team.”

The telecast will air for four hours each day. During the first and second rounds on Thursday and Friday, May 19-20, the telecast will air on ESPN from 1-2 p.m. ET during the final hour of live tournament coverage on ESPN+ and then move to ESPN2 from 2-5 p.m. while tournament play is airing on ESPN.

During the third and final rounds on Saturday and Sunday, May 21-22, the telecast will air on ESPN from 9-10 a.m. while live play is airing on ESPN+ and then it will switch to ESPN+ from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. while live play is airing on ESPN.  

Earlier this year, ESPN and The Walt Disney Company announced an expanded agreement with Peyton Manning and his Omaha Productions company, a relationship that launched Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli. The extension added a fourth year (through 2024 season) for Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli, featuring a 10-game annual slate of alternative productions to ESPN’s traditional Monday Night Football telecast. Additionally, the agreement calls for alternative presentations (with other hosts) for UFC, college football and golf to be produced by Omaha Productions in collaboration with ESPN.

In the third year of an 11-year deal with the PGA of America, ESPN and ESPN+ will present more some 230 hours of live coverage of the PGA Championship including traditional coverage as well as Featured Holes and Featured Groups.

"Coore & Crenshaw: The cornerstones of success"

They are the undisputed best in the business and I’m not sure it’s close, so it’s great to read Shaun Tolson’s profile of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw who are still going strong but also working the same way they always have: with the utmost care for the details.

It’s hard to believe this many years later but they struggled to get their design firm off the ground.

Looking back on those early years, when the duo had no pipeline of work and no completed projects upon which they could hang their proverbial hats, both men legitimately wondered if anyone was going to hire them. What they did know was that they shared the same philosophical approach to designing courses. Equally significant, they both shared the same philosophy of how they wanted their business of designing courses to operate. “We knew it had to be run like a business to survive,” Coore explains, “but at the same time, philosophically, we were trying to say that we were going to treat it like a hobby.

“When I say hobby, I mean, ‘let’s have fun doing this.’ Don’t make this such a business that we’re not involved and can’t have fun. If you have this dream to actually create a golf course, but you structure a business deal that takes that dream away, now you’re just a businessman.”

Ultimately, Coore and Crenshaw agreed from the beginning that their No. 1 goal was to design a few interesting golf courses, to be significantly involved in the work and development of those courses as they moved through the conception and construction phases, and to have some fun while doing it all. “Back then, no matter how we progressed, we knew we weren’t going to be prolific,” Crenshaw says. “Our goal was to build a few good golf courses. And that’s never changed. It doesn’t change now.”

"Bravo, Sergio. What a classless way to wave adios."

A glorious takedown by the Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson of Sergio Garcia following the Spaniard’s pitiful display at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship, supposedly one of his last on the PGA Tour before the whiny one takes his aging act to the Saudi Golf League.

I had forgotten about Sergio Garcia.

Given how much he had whined in Dubai at the start of the year about the established tours denying him the chance to make more money, when he's down to his last £100million in the bank, I must admit to feeling a tad embarrassed.

But, fair play to the temperamental Spaniard, he's come roaring back into contention in a style so spectacular as to render null and void any chance of forgetting him in future.

'I can't wait to leave this tour!' he screamed at a PGA Tour referee at the Wells Fargo Championship in Washington last week. 'Two more weeks and I'll be gone!'

You do feel sorry for Garcia, don't you? The purgatory he's had to put up with over the last 20 years in America, on his way to making $54m in prize money, plus a pension pot of at least twice that amount.

Bravo, Sergio. What a classless way to wave adios.

Say what you like about Lee Westwood's decision to team up with this dubious band of mercenaries, but at least he's doing so with a bit of dignity.

Trouble In Europe: 40 Players Ask For Releases And Other Signs Of Player Point-Missing

As John Huggan documents in this story from the British Masters, the then-European Tour went very far with the Raine Group and Premier Golf League folks discussing a deal that fell apart at the last minute. European Tour Chief Keith Pelley went with a PGA Tour alliance instead and now as the Saudi-backed LIV Golf threatens the rebranded DP World Tour’s existence, players are realizing the PGA Tour may not be the hoped-for salvation.

And there is this:

“I’m 41 and I don't want to be playing golf for the rest of my working life,” says another tour player who asked not to be named. “This week [at the Betfred British Masters] we’re playing for €2 million, which is the basically the same as 15 years ago. And I have to finish in the middle of the pack to clear maybe £1,000. That’s not much, when expenses have quadrupled in that time.

“So I’m tempted. The tour doesn’t care about me. They say they do, but they don’t. If I disappeared tomorrow, it would make no difference to them. Plus, there is hypocrisy here. The Saudi event was OK for three years and now it’s not? I worry for the future of this tour. It might be here in 10 years time, but I can’t imagine it will look like it does now.”

The Telegraph’s James Corrigan reports that 40 players asked the DP World Tour for releases to the forthcoming London event. The deadline was Monday, May 9th and the number appears to be higher than expected.

But given the slow movement strengthening the “strategic alliance” should anyone really be surprised? We learned last week the PGA Tour is still devoting excess energy to its fall slate and and rehashing many of the same issues that have weakened their product in the wraparound/FedEx first era. The Tour was weakened trying to save those fall events and now appears to be vulnerable devoting more time to saving events that attract tiny audiences.

Then you have the players who, besides the unnamed one quoted above lamenting the state of affairs, appear to genuinely believe they are worth extreme courting and lucrative measures to lure them away.

While I’m sure Matthew Southgate is a tremendous human and his cancer survival is inspiring, he spoke on a recent Sky Sports podcast about all the things the Saudi money could do to develop new talent and build something big four or five years from now. His comments provide a window into the kind of delusional thinking that believes we are living in a time of players like the game has never seen before and ones that fans are clamoring to see like no other generation.

Mind you, it’s been years since a European Tour event drew a measurable rating on Golf Channel and the turnover rate of players and parity is extreme. Plus, a new condensed PGA Tour schedule is now hurting tournaments between majors, reducing the amount we see stars in the weeks between the Grand Slam.

But an unsettling number of players believe this moment has become because of them instead of, say, Tiger Woods or the Saudis wanting to use golf to improve their terrible image.

From a Golf.com item summarizing Southgate’s remarks:

“The most overlooked thing with the Saudi tour at the minute is that everybody is focusing on the players of today and nobody is thinking of the players of tomorrow,” the DP World Tour player said on the podcast. “Five years ago, we didn’t know Bob MacIntyre, we didn’t know Scottie Scheffler, we don’t know Viktor Hovland or either of the Hojgaard brothers. When you start going through the list of players who weren’t on Tour five years ago, it’s quite significant.

And most of those names could walk down any street on the planet and not be recognized, but please, continue.

“Should they have a stumbling block today because they can’t get the players of today, there’s nothing stopping them producing the players of tomorrow. That’s where it’s tough.

“If Saudi were to put on a tour school for the youngsters and start to produce their own players, which would be easy enough for them to do, then as soon as you ban one current player going to play, there you can’t possibly invite a future player coming back to play.

“Let’s just say the next Bob MacIntyre is 18 years old, and he’s sat somewhere in Scotland today. He goes to the Saudi Tour school and wins, or gets an invite to play on the Saudi Tour, then in five years’ time, he’s world No. 1. You can’t then invite him back to play Scottish Open if you’re banning everybody else already on that Tour from going off to play in the Saudi events.

That’s true, assuming someone is willing to pony up money to develop players and go off the radar for a few years in hopes of building a tour. Perhaps the Saudis have that kind of long term commitment but so far, they’ve pivoted about five ways to make the upcoming events work and have shown little temperament for the building scenario outlined.

"After 12 rounds of chemo, this freshman began a promising golf career"

Hayley Salvatore of the Washington Post tells the amazing story of 14-year-old Madison Smith, who has overcome Stage 3 colorectal and is competing for her high school golf team with dreams of making it to Augusta.

During a trip to Maui in August, Madison started experiencing extreme stomach pain and nausea. While she was initially diagnosed as being infected with E. coli and Salmonella — bacteria consistent with food poisoning — her symptoms persisted after she took medication, prompting her mother to suspect worse. Doctors performed an X-ray, found a stricture — a narrowing of the intestinal tract — and airlifted her to a hospital in Honolulu that was equipped to perform surgery.

When pediatric surgeon Sidney Johnson was finished, he pulled Molly and James Smith out of the recovery room to discuss the results. In the hospital’s chapel, Johnson told them he had removed 23 swollen lymph nodes and a foot of Madison’s colon and that a biopsy came back positive for both celiac disease and cancer. Molly and James were stunned to learn about their otherwise healthy daughter’s diagnosis.

“We had not even been contemplating that because she’s so young and it’s so rare for her age group,” James said. “It just doesn’t happen, so we weren’t prepared for that.”

The cancer afflicts around 100 kids Smith’s age annually, but with the support of her family, school and puppy, she made it through 12 chemo sessions and is back on the course playing high school matches with hopes of making to Augusta via the Drive, Chip and Putt.

Over the course of the season, she has amassed 8.5 points in match play. Her favorite match was her first varsity outing with the team against Paul VI. Although the Falcons lost, 6.5-2.5, Madison, who was up against a junior boy, won her duel.

“We were tied through the ninth hole, and he was sweating, he was getting nervous and he was like, ‘This is not supposed to happen,’ ” said Madison, whose long-term goal is to golf at the collegiate level. “I like playing against boys because they don’t expect it from a little girl.”

Playing at the home of the Masters has always been a goal of Madison’s, so much so that when she was asked what she wanted to do as part of the Make-A-Wish foundation, her answer was easy — to play Augusta National and spend a few nights in the Crow’s Nest, where amateur golfers stay during the Masters.

“If you could say, ‘Yeah I got to play Augusta when I was 14,’ people would be like, ‘Huh?’ ” Madison said.

That wish has not yet been granted, but Madison is confident that she will reach her chosen destination at some point, whether it’s through the Drive, Chip & Putt competition or Make-A-Wish.

“She’s convinced she’s going to get to Augusta,” James said, “one way or another.”

Michael Bamberger Moves To The Fire Pit

Congrats to longtime golf writer Michael Bamberger on leaving the Milstein reality stranglehold and going to The Fire Pit Collective. Can’t wait to see what you produce!

Petulance Just Got Real! Sergio Has Only A Few More Weeks On The PGA Tour!

This is going to be tough to swallow. The emotions, the sadness, the outright misery that this man has had to endure playing the PGA Tour as a relentlessly brooding, temper-tantrum prone, club-hurling, green vandalizing jagwagon may be coming to an end. Oh, and say goodbye to a Ryder Cup captaincy, too.

Having hit his shot into the TPC Potomac’s 10th hole junk, Sergio Garcia vented his case for leniency to a PGA Tour rules official over the commencement of timing for his lost ball search. (See below for an update on that.)

"I can't wait to get out of here,” the miserable said not in reference to the overgrown penalty area, but we would soon find out, in reference to the PGA Tour. Then after more of his signature whining and petulance when he didn’t get his way, Sergio announced he’s going to be taking up residence on the LIV Golf tour where the slogan is, “Shot Just Got Real".

"I can't wait to leave this tour. ... I can't wait to get out of here, my friend,” the wee one said.

And just to be sure we were unclear, the 2017 Masters champion wrapped things up with: "a couple of more weeks, I don't have to deal with you anymore."

Though PGA Tour rules officials work all four major championships, something Garcia would know if he actually interacted with humans in an adult manner.

Garcia did not speak to reporters after his Wells Fargo opening round, but his agent did confirm that his client has sought a release for the first LIV event.

The full video from PGA Tour Live of what may be one of his final rounds on the PGA Tour…until he comes crawling back next year:

**The PGA Tour issued this statement explaining that the official was mistaken in his timing the lost ball search. However, because Garcia entered a marked penalty area, dropped and incurred a one-stroke penalty, there is no change to his score. But some lucky person got to notify him he was in the right. I’m sure he handled it with dignity!