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Australian {golfing} nice Greg Norman admits his enterprise with LIV has value him many shut relationships.
However he is adamant the choice to move up the Saudi-backed league has been a hit, and improved the standing of the sport’s professionals around the globe.
Norman’s poaching of a variety of the most effective males’s gamers from the PGA Tour – together with Australia’s Cameron Smith, who was world No.2 and contemporary off an Open Championship victory when he defected – has torn the sport in two and sparked fiery run-ins on the vary and in courtroom rooms.
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The 68-year-old has lengthy maintained he has the most effective pursuits of the gamers at coronary heart, regardless of heavy ongoing criticism from the likes of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods.
In response to LIV’s monstrous presents – most totalling tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} simply to signal on – the PGA Tour has elevated prizemoney for a variety of occasions.
”Sure, we have gone and ruffled just a few feathers. However we ruffled the feathers of a monopolist,” Norman informed the “Individuals I (Principally) Admire” podcast this week.
“A monopolist who principally managed the game for 53 years. I attempted to make a little bit of a change again in ’93, ’94 with the world tour and once more bumped into the identical headwinds again then as what we’re operating into now. So they do not like change.
“They do not like competitors. To see what’s occurred at present on the PGA Tour, since LIV got here onto the scene, a large quantity of capital was injected again into the gamers on the PGA Tour.
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“So, to be trustworthy with you, the gamers on the PGA Tour ought to be giving a standing ovation to LIV, the league, and the gamers for exciting this new injection of cash.”
Whereas Norman believes LIV has achieved what he hoped it might, he concedes it has ended relationships in his private life.
“A few of my expensive associates do not even converse to me due to this,” he mentioned.
“That is their selection. In the event you do not wish to discuss to me once more, pleased days.”
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