Rory McIlroy Calls for LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman to Step Down Before Any Talks With PGA
PGA star Rory McIlroy says that LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman needs to step down first if there is to be any hope of talks between the Saudi-backed tour and the PGA.
The Saudi Arabian government funds the highly controversial LIV Golf, and some golfers, like Phil Mickelson, were guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars to join the start-up league.
LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have sued one another for antitrust violations.
Since LIV Golf began to poach golfers from the PGA, McIlroy admitted that both sides needed to meet at the table because “the game is ripping itself apart.”
Two weeks ago, Norman was on a conference call with reporters and believed LIV Golf did everything it could, and the PGA needed to make a decision.
“I think the ball is in their court,” Norman said. “We have tried on many angles, many fronts. It’s disappointing, this vitriol, this ill-will. I can tell you with my heart all the PGA Tour players and DP World Players who played with LIV, they want to go back and play on the PGA tour. Some of them are saying no, but in the beginning, they all wanted to go back.”
McIlroy met with the media Tuesday afternoon in Dubai before he competed in the DP World Championship in Dubai. The press asked McIlroy if both sides could come together.
“Is that possible with what’s been said by the protagonists involved, so the head of the PGA Tour, so Greg Norman, is it even possible to see those two guys sitting down?” the reporter asked McIlroy.
“I think there’s a few things that need to happen,” McIlroy said. “So there’s obviously two lawsuits going on at the minute, right? There’s the PGA Tour verse LIV, and there’s obviously this one that’s coming up with the DP World Tour in February. Nothing can happen if those things are still going on. You’re limited in what you can do.”
McIlroy called for Norman’s job as a start for both sides to come to some agreement.
“I think from whatever happens with those two things; there’s a few things I would like to see on the LIV side that needs to happen,” McIlroy added. “I think Greg needs to go. I think he needs to exit stage left. He’s made his mark, but I think now is the right time to sort of look and say, ‘look, you’ve got this thing off the ground, but no one’s gonna talk unless there’s an adult in the room that can actually try to mend fences.’ And if those two things happen, then things can happen, but right now, it’s a stalemate because there can’t be any other way.”
McIlroy is hopeful that the PGA and LIV could agree, but he had low optimism if it would happen.
“Hopefully, something can happen, who knows, but right now I think the two separate entities, PGA Tour, European Tour (DP World Tour) and LIV, they’re just going to keep going both their separate ways,” McIlroy continued. “And one’s a very different product to the other. They’re just going to keep going until something happens. Whether that’s in the hands of a court or a judge or something else happens along the way, no one really knows. But right now, it seems like it’s a bit of a stalemate.”
Watch above via DP World Tour.
