Organisers of golf’s oldest major have began trying to entice former double Open Championship champion Greg Norman to reconsider a decision to quit competing in the event following a dispute involving rival Swiss wrist watch companies. 

Norman won the first of his only two majors in capturing the 1986 Open Championship at Turnberry and then repeating the effort in 1993, and in the company of the victorious Australian Ashes Cricket winning side at Royal St. George’s and where the late, great Gene Sarazen handed Norman the famed Claret Jug.

However a near two-year dispute between rival watch manufactures Rolex and Omega has led to the Australian-born golfer long known as the ‘Great White Shark’ to effectively end his association with golf’s oldest major.

The issue first flared mid-2012 when Norman entered the British Senior Open at Turnberry but as an ambassador for Omega he was asked to withdraw from the Pro-Am given the title sponsor of the Senior Open was Rolex.

Then later that year Norman was coincidentally present at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland on the day European Ryder Cup captain Jose Maria Olazabal was set to announce his two Medinah ‘wildcard’ picks.

Greg Norman meets with his good friend of more than 30 years – Jose Maria Olazabal at the 2011 PGA Championship in Atlanta. (Photo – Fran Caffrey/www.golffile.ie)

Norman was on hand to host a corporate outing for Johnnie Walker, and the  day immediately following the Johnnie Walker Championship, but given it was raining heavily outside Norman, and knowing Olazabal for many years, ventured to the back of the conference room to listen to the Spaniard’s announcement.

However Norman was approached by a European Tour official and politely asked to leave, and all because the European Ryder Cup team was being sponsored by Rolex yet bizarrely upon arrival in Chicago some weeks later Omega signage was all about the course as one of the major sponsors of the Ryder Cup.

Norman traveled later that week to Switzerland to contest the Omega European Masters where he expressed his outrage about being asked to leave the Gleneagles conference room.

“I’m disgusted by it all and it’s never ever happened before in my entire life,” said Norman at the time.

“What was annoying is that Jose Maria and I have been mates for 30 years, and besides he later came up to me to apologise for what happened.

“He just wanted me to know that it wasn’t him who didn’t want me in the press conference.

“Of course, I was in Scotland for Johnnie Walker and they’re one of the Ryder Cup and Tour sponsors, so it’s a deep and ugly story.”

Norman was reluctant to go any further with the story but did, with some coaxing, reveal how he was told he was not welcome to tee-up in Turnberry Pro-Am and event known officially titled ‘The Senior Open presented by Rolex’.

“It would be too much energy to go into it but Rolex actually had me removed from the Pro-Am, so that’s when it all started,” he also said at the time.

After having first contested the Open Championship in 1977 Norman’s now announced he will no longer contest golf”s oldest major.

Greg Norman wins the second of two Open Championship in 1993 at Royal St. Georges.

“If you want the truth, I’ve played in my last Open and it’s all down to the way the Royal and Ancient and the European Tour have handled my whole situation,” said the 59-year-old.

“What happened a few years back has left a pretty sour taste in my mouth, a bad feeling after what I have done in the game.

“I’ve nothing against the R&A and the European Tour but, quite frankly, the way they go about their business is not the way I do it.”

Norman, who recorded the first of his 14 European Tour victories in the 1977 Martini 
International at Blairgowrie, made his debut in the Open Championship the same year and only missed the event twice between then and 1999.

His appearances in the season’s third major have been sporadic over the last decade or so but, to the delight of his fans, the then 53-year-old led at halfway at Royal Birkdale in 2008 before going on to finish third behind Padraig Harrington.

Norman’s business affairs have long consumed much of his time but it was hoped he would be tempted to make a farewell Open Championship appearance at St Andrews in 2015, as Arnold Palmer had done at the Home of Golf in 200 and then as Jack Nicklaus had famously done five years later.

However the R & A is working hard to encourage Norman to change his mind.

“Greg Norman is one of the greats in our sport and he is much loved by fans at The Open,” said an R & A spokesman.

“He’s always welcome at the Championship and we hope that, if he is unable to play this year at Royal Liverpool [this year’s venue], he can join us at St Andrews next year.”