Greg Norman wants to copy Man Utd and IPL with ambitious LIV Golf plan
LIV Golf and it's commissioner Greg Norman have hugely ambitious plans as the breakaway tour vies to cement its place in the golf establishment, with ideas to copy the Premier League and IPL
LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman has revealed the league plans to buy or create its own golf courses, giving each team its own home venue, taking inspiration from the Premier League.
The Saudi Arabia-funded league has steadily gained momentum since it launched in 2022, boasting a roster with several of the best players in the world. But the tour is yet to truly capture the attention of the mainstream and deliver big viewing figures
However, the outspoken Norman insists LIV will not stop trying to make its team format stick, with plans for each of the 13 teams to have a home course owned by the league. Critics say LIV's team competition is tenuous and hard to follow, but giving each squad a definitive home could give the competition a deeper narrative and foster a greater level of fandom.
"Man United owns their stadium. Indian Premier League, they own their stadiums. NFL, they own their stadiums," Norman told Bloomberg. "Think about LIV owning all their own golf courses, each team having a home venue and they host. And now you can build out around that. It's not just a golf course.
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"You bring in education, you bring in hospitality, you bring in real estate, you bring in merchandise, you bring in management, you bring in all these other different opportunities that the game of golf has to deliver to a community, to a region. We are gonna be doing that."
LIV has focused on creating a global schedule as it tries to establish itself, unlike the PGA Tour which stages almost all of its tournaments in North America. Just two of LIV's seven tournaments this season have been held in the United States, with Brooks Koepka winning the latest tour stop in Singapore on Sunday.
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Asia is an area of increasing interest for LIV, according to Norman, who said a new addition to the calendar in that part of the world is on the cards. "The Philippines are very keen to get us there," he revealed. "Golf in the Philippines is doing very well.
"We are not just sport, we're sports and entertainment and culture. So no matter where we go in the world, we adjust what we need to deliver from an entertainment standpoint."
Talks are ongoing between LIV's backers, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, and both the PGA and DP World Tour over a merger deal which could pave the way for the world's best players to face each other on the course more often. But Norman does not seem too bothered by reunifying the game.
"That never happened anyway. Right? I was the number one player in the world. Very seldom did I go and play in the United States or Europe or Asia or anything," he explained. "Did I play against the best in the world outside the four majors and maybe The Players? They're the five, right? So very, very seldom did that happen. We got all paid appearance money to go play somewhere."
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