Norman: “LIV Never Put Any Offer To Him (McIlroy)”.

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CEO Greg Norman was emphatic in stating LIV Golf never made any offer to Rory McIlroy seeking his signature on a LIV contract.

“I’ll make the comment if you look back over that time period of that dialogue that was going, there wasn’t one comment about LIV. LIV never put an offer to him. We didn’t need to make a comment about this. This is just typical white noise that gets out there in the industry”, said  Norman ahead of this week’s LIV Adeladie tournament in Australia.

“If Rory was willing to sit down and have a conversation with us, would we be happy to sit down with him? 100 percent, no different than any other player who would be interested in coming on and playing with us.

“But he (McIlroy) made the decision — he told me up two days later and said, I’ve decided to stay where I’m at. I said, happy days. You made a decision on fact. If you’re happier over here, fine, stay there. Your door is always open; if you want to come back and have a conversation with us, happy to do that”.

McIlroy seemingly softened his stance on LIV Golf when news first broke that Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton had signed with LIV saying it ‘was a smart business move’ on the part of his two 2023 Ryder Cup winning colleagues.  Then there was the suggestion that LIV had approached McIlroy offering upwards of $850m to join LIV but with McIlroy declaring in an interview on the Golf Channel he would be play on the PGA Tour for the rest of his career.

Then earlier this week we learned McIlroy is about to return as a member of the Tour’s Policy Advisory Board.

While Norman has seemingly ended all talk of McIlroy joining LIV, Norman indicated that it has not stopped other current PGA Tour members from talking with Norman about the possibility of joining the ranks of LIV.

“It’s understanding the facts about what LIV represents and what LIV can deliver on a global basis”, said Norman

“It’s up to you to determine it. I’ve sat down with one top, top PGA TOUR player in his house with another member of my team, walking through the whole process, and he was so impressed — he said, well, that’s not what we’re told in the locker room. This is really impressive”.

More importantly, men’s professsional golf continues its path of uncertainty with negotiations delayed between the PIF and PGA Tour over the “framework agreement” that could determine what the sport looks like around the world.

The original date for a finalised version of December 31 last year was shifted out, but Norman said he had no visibility on the talks or what they meant for LIV.

“I would love to give you insight but I don’t have any. We at LIV are totally separate to that part of the negotiation. We at LIV are a stand-alone company being invested by the same investor interested in the game of golf,” Norman said,

“Investment dollars are flowing into the game of golf for the right reasons, not for the wrong reasons. Our investor wanted to invest into LIV because he loved the opportunity of the franchise model, what he could do with it and how we can build it out on a global platform.

“So me specifically, I don’t know what’s going on over there. I really don’t want to know what’s going on over there because we are so fixated on growing and developing and building out what LIV is today and looking and doing our schedule for 2025 and going into 2026.”

 



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