Golf Won't Miss Greg Norman's Departure From Spotlight

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

Good riddance! The best news I have heard all year is that Greg Norman is to be replaced as chief executive of LIV Golf. 

Regular readers will know that I am no fan of the Saudi-backed golf circuit but I am under no illusions. With or without the Australian, LIV would still have happened. And I suppose that he does deserve some credit for being able to persuade the likes of Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka to make the move from the PGA Tour.

Mind you, with the vast amounts of money he was able to wave under their noses, even my old Aunty Fanny could probably have done the same. 

Norman was always the most likely individual to be chosen as LIV’s front man because he had been trying to launch some form of world golf tour since the 1990s. 

However, I am absolutely certain that the LIV circuit was not what he had in mind. When in his prime, Norman would not have foreseen 54-hole tournaments with no halfway cut. And he most definitely would not have imagined that the Saudis would help to make his vision a reality.

So if all of this was somehow inevitable, why am I so happy to see the back of Norman?

Funny you should ask.

It is not that he was the man who fronted the breakaway tour. As I said, if he hadn’t done it, somebody else would. 

I always enjoyed watching Norman play golf because the game he played was thrilling. He knew only one way to play the game - and that was to attack. 

And that is precisely why he suffered so much heartbreak in a career that brought him plenty of victories but more than his fair share of bitter disappointments. None more so than his collapse at The Masters in 1996 when Nick Faldo, his nemesis, produced a final round of 67 as Norman’s game deserted him.

But I was never sure that I liked him very much as a human being. And he has confirmed that with a series of unseemly spats over the past three years or so. 

There were personal attacks on Jay Monahan, Jack Nicklaus, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods. There were the boasts that his phone was ringing off the hook with potential recruits after LIV signed Rahm.

This was typical of him: "The PGA Tour come in and rape and pillage for one tournament what is it, every 12 years [he was talking about the Presidents Cup played in Australia], and they suck it dry and leave. We are a leader in so many different ways and we are leading so far ahead of the Presidents Cup in delivering to Australia. The value we are bringing, by my estimate, no-one else's, is near nine figures."

He accused Nicklaus of being a hypocrite and said that McIlroy had been brainwashed by the PGA Tour. He also announced that Woods had been offered an eye-watering sum to join LIV and even named PGA Tour golfers that LIV were actively seeking to recruit. It was all utterly reprehensible.

McIlroy believes that Norman has done LIV and Saudi ­Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan no favours.

Earlier this year he said: "I have spent time with Yasir. The people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice, so Norman and those guys. I see the two entities and I actually think there’s a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing. So the closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalise that investment, I think that will be a really good thing."

Norman shamelessly courted players such as Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Tony Finau and told the world he was doing so. It forced them to publicly deny that they had any intentions of joining LIV. He should be ashamed of himself.

Norman is being replaced by former Alton Towers and Legoland boss Scott O’Neil, who is likely to bring a more measured approach.

Sadly, Norman believes that he is still going to have a role to play.

He said: "I’ve seen [LIV] come from a business model on paper to giving birth on the golf course to where it is today. 

"Is there going to be a new CEO? Yes. There will be a new CEO. I’m fine with that. Will I always have a place and be involved with LIV to some capacity? Yes. I’ll always have that. Because the impact that has been created in the game of golf by LIV, I’ve had a small, small piece of that, which I’m proud of."

It is sad that a man who brought so much to the game as a player will largely be remembered as being one of the most divisive figures that the world of professional golf has ever known and I hope that LIV pay him off and send him off into the sunset.