A Greg Norman interview with ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach is getting a lot of attention for the Shark opening up even more about “negative momentum” Phil Mickelson’s “scary m&^%$#@&^’s” characterization caused the startup LIV Golf.
I found a couple of other remarks more telling and they probably kept conversation lively around the Global Home’s pizza maker today.
"Quite honestly, we were ready to launch on the Tuesday or Wednesday of Genesis," Norman said. "We had enough players in our strength of field, or minimal viable product, ready to come on board. And when all of that happened, everybody got the jitters, and the PGA Tour threatened people with lifetime bans and stuff like that."
Norman said a handful of the players who had previously signed with LIV Golf have remained committed to play in the series, which now includes eight events -- including five in the U.S.
Norman said they had 15 of the world top 50 at the time committed to play in what was a league concept then and is now a come-as-you-please tour with a team event at the end. If he’s to be believed—always an if with the Shark—that would have been a more significant number of top players than the current 15 of the top 100 most recently estimated.
But this was a shocker:
"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."
So according to the Shark money was wired and returned.
Which would suggest a sizable number of players were and probably will continue to have no qualms about the money source, a significant problem for the existing Tours who have either done business with Saudi Arabia (European Tour) or are afraid to question the source (PGA Tour).
Yet who is proudly all in and publicly committed to the LIV events?