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On the eve of LIV Golf’s third season, the breakaway league’s commissioner Greg Norman has come under some stinging criticism.
Norman is preparing to reveal the full LIV roster ahead of the 2024 season-opener at Mayakoba on Friday.
And while uncertainty has shrouded his position ever since a framework deal was announced between LIV’s Saudi backers and the PGA Tour, he has remained bullish about the future.
The 68-year-old claimed in October that LIV has “never been stronger” and he has paid “zero attention” to rumours he may be sacked in the wake of prospective merger between the sport’s warring factions.
Not everyone, however, is convinced by Norman – or indeed his beloved LIV product.
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Scott Simpson, the 1987 US Open champion, competed on the PGA Tour during Norman’s era of dominance and has no time for the Australian’s LIV venture.
“I can’t stand what LIV has done to golf,” Simpson who is now a golf coach in Hawaii, told Golfweek.
“I don’t know how you fight them. How do you fight someone that can lose $2 billion a year and don’t care? At least if they both had to make money, LIV would be bankrupt, like a USFL or something, because nobody is watching it. Nobody cares.”
Simpson also opened up on how his opinion of LIV’s frontman Norman changed after the money that came with the Australian’s success.
“I liked him when he first came over from Australia, he was fun and hit it, especially for back then, long and straight,” Simpson claimed. “He was a great player. Played with him quite a bit. He was a nice guy and everything. But then the more he got successful and the more money he made, he got more miserable because he has to live up to — ‘I’m so big, and I’m such a businessman’.
“He got miserable on the course. It was just like, why are you out here? He was just grumpy and entitled. Just getting all that money, I think, kind of changed him and stuff. Everybody liked his wife and then they got divorced. Nick Price named his son after Greg but by the end, yeah, they had no relationship. It was really weird. Norman just became kind of a jerk. Nobody liked him.”
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