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A group headlined by Greg Norman is the most current new undertaking making ready to give an substitute league to the dominant PGA Tour in qualified golfing.
On Friday, Norman, 66, who is a many key champion and was the world’s top-ranked participant for additional than five years, declared his association with LIV Golf Investments, whose significant shareholder is the Community Financial investment Fund, an investment decision arm of Saudi Arabia’s govt.
Norman’s team has committed to phase an additional 10 events on the Asian Tour in the next ten years. But the enterprise’s targets are for a distinguished worldwide presence, with engage in commencing as early as up coming 12 months.
“This is only the starting,” Norman stated in a assertion. “LIV Golfing Investments has secured a important cash motivation that will be utilised to create additive new prospects throughout all over the world professional golf.”
The announcement will come only months following a team led by the Community Expense Fund ordered the Premier League soccer staff Newcastle United just after a yearslong pursuit. That deal was practically derailed by the fund’s involvement critics of Saudi Arabia say the investments in sporting activities by the PIF are basically an work by the kingdom to obscure accusations of human legal rights abuses.
For much more than 25 decades, Norman has hoped to produce a worldwide golf tour as a rival to the PGA Tour. In the 1990s, he proposed a earth golf tour and experimented with to lure leading players to enjoy in a assortment of small area activities that would have enlarged purses. The PGA Tour commissioner at the time, Tim Finchem, succeeded in fending off Norman’s tour, which the PGA Tour considered as undesired levels of competition to its circuit.
Given that then, various versions of a entire world tour that would obstacle the PGA Tour have been proposed without a substantial adjust in elite experienced golf’s landscape. The most current was the Premier Golfing League, based mostly in London, which had a approach for more than 15 tournaments and limited fields of 48 gamers that would start in 2023. A host of PGA Tour players, most notably Rory McIlroy, who was then No. 1 in the men’s throughout the world rankings, were being emphatic in their disinterest in the new league. The PGA Tour also informed its players that if they played in the upstart league they would not be permitted to compete on the PGA Tour.
Norman, recognized for his daring enjoy and attacking design and style — his nickname is “the shark” — is undeterred.
“The Asian Tour is a sleeping giant and we share ambition to improve the collection and unlock what we think is important untapped possible,” Norman reported. “We see our marketing of these new events as a essential 1st stage in supporting emerging markets, generating a new platform, loaded with enjoying opportunities that build valuable participant pathways.”
