The feud between the 2 richest powers in golf continues. A couple of days after Tiger Woods echoed Rory McIlroy’s sentiment that Greg Norman wants to be eliminated at the CEO of LIV Golf earlier than LIV and the PGA Tour can peacefully coexist, Norman retaliated with some fireplace remarks of his personal. In an exclusive interview with Today’s Golfer, Norman supplied up a rebuttal for Woods and McIlroy.
“I pay zero attention to McIlroy and Woods, right?,” Norman mentioned. “They have their agenda for whatever reason. They’re saying whatever they want to say. It has no bearing or effect on me. I’m going to be with LIV for a long, long period of time.
“When the monopolist’s territory is getting threatened, they are going to rear their ugly head up and do what they do. But from my complete perspective, I’ve at all times taken the excessive highway this 12 months. I’ll proceed to take the excessive highway as a result of I consider in our enterprise mannequin. I consider in our folks, I consider within the gamers’ impartial rights, and we have already seen a dramatic shift in our viewers.”
Norman’s response stems from Woods backing up his buddy McIlroy main up to the Hero World Challenge occasion he hosts yearly within the Bahamas final week.Â
“I think Greg has to go, first of all,” Woods mentioned. “Then obviously litigation against us and then our countersuit against them, those would then have to be at a stay as well. So then we can talk, we can all talk freely.”
Woods reiterated his emotions later within the press convention.Â
“Right now as it is, not right now, not with their leadership, not with Greg there and his animosity towards the Tour itself,” Woods mentioned about potential peace talks. “I don’t see that happening. As Rory said, and I said it as well, I think Greg’s got to leave and then we can eventually, hopefully, have a stay between the two lawsuits and figure something out.”
McIlroy, who has mentioned one thing very comparable to Woods about Norman needing to be ousted, would possibly take exception to Norman’s remark about taking the excessive highway. He advised a story recently to Paul Kimmage of the Independent about how he and Norman had a pleasant dialog about Norman’s profession struggles at Augusta National and kind of made amends on all the things. Then, it went bitter.
“Then, a couple of weeks later, he does an interview with The Washington Post and says I’ve been ‘brainwashed by the PGA Tour’,” mentioned McIlroy. “I’m like ‘For f**k sake!’ We’ve had this really nice back-and-forth and he says that about me. I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to make it my business now to be as much of a pain in his arse as possible.'”
There have been rumors in recent weeks that Norman will probably be stepping aside as LIV CEO. Whether that truly occurs stays to be seen, but it surely’s clear that there’s disdain for him from crucial of us on the opposite aspect.
“I am not going anywhere,” Norman mentioned. “I don’t care what anybody says. I’m not going anywhere. I am so proud of the position I am in and maybe, maybe, it’s my leadership that has them scared. Maybe…”
Maybe.