Rory McIlroy urges Greg Norman to “exit stage left”

Rory McIlroy claimed LIV Golf chief Greg Norman needs to stand down if there is to be peace in men’s professional golf.

The last 12 months have been marred by warring factions at the game’s top level amid a raft of defections to the Saudi-backed startup.

Its arrival has led to acrimony between those choosing to remain with the PGA Tour and those who have left.

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McIlroy has been particularly strong in his criticism but has softened his stance in recent weeks, suggesting the time is right for all parties to get round the table.

However, the world No.1 claimed “nothing will happen” while LIV’s lawsuits against the PGA and DP World tours are ongoing – or while Norman remains in post.

“There’s a few things that I would like to see on the LIV side that needs to happen,” he said ahead of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

“I think Greg needs to go. I think he just needs to exit stage left. He’s made his mark but I think now is the right time to sort of say, look, you’ve got this thing off the ground but no one is going to talk unless there’s an adult in the room that can actually try to mend fences.

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“Right now it’s a stalemate because there can’t be any other way. Hopefully something can happen, who knows.

“But right now, I think the separate entities – the PGA Tour, European Tour and LIV – are both going their separate ways and one is a very different product to the other, and they are just going to keep going whether something happens and whether that’s in the hand of a court or a judge or something else happens along the way, no one really knows.”