Greg Norman, the figurehead of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series, has defended the competition after current criticism from high-profile figures at some level of the sport.
Golfers equivalent to Norman, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson who enjoy chosen to affix the breakaway series enjoy got criticism on tale of of the human rights abuses accomplished by the Saudi regime. Within the US, the considerable sportscaster Bob Costas offered a withering review of the LIV Series. “Right here is Saudi blood money,” he talked about final week. “Every person knows all we ought to know about the royal family and what they enjoy got done. It’s no longer correct [Jamal] Khashoggi, it’s no longer correct the ongoing oppression of girls and gays, they’re without prolong or circuitously tied – in accordance with US and British intelligence – to the 9/11 tournament.”
The PGA Tour has banned golfers who enjoy joined the LIV Series. At some level of an look on Fox News on Saturday, Norman talked about the decision turned into hypocritical given the tour’s enjoy hyperlinks with Saudi Arabia.
“Look, within the occasion that they’re making an try to behold at it in prism, then why does the PGA Tour enjoy 23 sponsors within the PGA Tour doing 40-plus billion dollars rate of enterprise with Saudi Arabia? Why is it OK for the sponsors? Why is it OK … that there’s a Saudi sponsor, Aramco, a really great sponsor of girls’s golf on this planet? Why is it OK for them? Why is it no longer OK for these avid gamers? Will [PGA Tour commissioner] Jay Monahan budge to every and each a kind of CEOs of the 23 firms which will most in all probability be investing into Saudi Arabia and suspend them and ban them? … The hypocrisy in all this, it’s so loud. It’s deafening.”
Rory McIlroy, who has been dismissive of the LIV Series, at the moment took a shot at Norman, asserting he had derived particular pleasure from passing the Australian’s total of PGA Tour wins. On the opposite hand, Norman talked about golf had been joyful to tackle Saudi Arabia for a series of years.
“The European PGA Tour … [has] a golf tournament, the Saudi Worldwide, that’s easy in existence since 2019,” Norman talked about. “And at some level of that Saudi Worldwide, there had been PGA Tour avid gamers who got rights and waivers to budge play there. To be capable to me, if golf is suitable for the sphere, golf is suitable for Saudi, and you’re seeing that enhance internally; it’s extraordinarily impressive.”
This month Mickelson turned into forced to defend himself after households of 9/11 victims attacked his decision to affix the breakaway league. Norman insists the league can sigh advantages to golf.
“I saw the worth and what golf can sigh spherical the sphere,” he talked about. “So from there I talked about: ‘Sure, here is an infinite platform and it’s a commercial operation.’ We’re in it for a cause: to invent golf and grow golf on a winning level and on behalf of the avid gamers – they’re self reliant contractors. Give them an different in command to enhance their wealth at their different. However also at the the same time, perchance our platform is a puny bit better on tale of it presents them time beyond regulation with their family, esteem there turned into Charl Schwartzel along with his wife and youngsters. Their platform presents them that different and it is a different.”
After its opening tournament in London, the series moves to the US with tournaments in Portland and Bedminster. The Bedminster route is owned by Donald Trump, presently beneath investigation for his role within the 6 January assault on the US Capitol.