Why Greg Norman's name left me in dilemma buying new golf trousers

The Australian, it has to be said straight away, has never caused me any personal grievance and, in actual fact, I was a huge fan of ‘The Shark’, a two-time major winner and former world No 1, in his playing days.

With all due respect to eventual winner Nick Faldo, I can still remember feeling gutted, in fact, after Norman’s meltdown in The Masters in 1996, when he took a five-shot lead into the final round but ended up losing by five strokes. Ouch!

So why, you are probably asking, would I find myself in what, let’s face it, was a pretty ridiculous position of not feeling as though I would be comfortable buying a garment bearing his iconic label? The simple answer, of course, is that I’m not a fan of LIV Golf, never have been and never will be, and, consequently, over the past few years I have found myself disliking Norman for his role in the Saudi-backed breakaway circuit.

He’s had a chip on his shoulder for a long, long time and used his opportunity, with a king’s ransom at his disposal, to try and convince us that the game’s traditional model of 72-hole events isn’t really working and that 54-hole tournaments involving teams and shotgun starts would revolutionise the sport.

In Norman’s eyes, LIV Golf, which recently started its fourth season, has been a roaring success. “I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished or more pleased with where the league stands today,” he said when standing down recently as the circuit’s CEO and commissioner. “I’m excited to pass the baton of day-to-day management and continue to help do what I can to grow LIV Golf.”

I’ll hold my hands up here. I honestly didn’t see the LIV circuit being in existence for too long, but, by the looks of things, it is here for the foreseeable future at the very least and the game’s two governing bodies seem to have acknowledged that.

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In separate announcements, The R&A and USGA have both introduced a new exemption category this year that will offer a LIV Golf player a spot in the 153nd Open at Royal Portrush in July and the 125th US Open at Oakmont Country Club the previous month. With different cut-off dates, that won’t necessarily be the same player and, as you might expect, Norman’s successor, Scott O’Neil, has been delighted with the double development.

“LIV will continue our mission to bring the best players to the four corners of the world to grow the game,” declared O’Neil, who has plenty of experience when it comes to sports and entertainment management roles and, in a short period of time, certainly seems to have had a positive impact in terms of getting things over the line. “We are excited for the future of this great sport.”

Though not necessarily known to the golfing public, lots of sponsorship and marketing deals have been secured by LIV Golf teams over the past few months, with the Majesticks quartet of Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter and Sam Horsfield, for example, now having a clothing contract with Castore, which, of course, is backed by Andy Murray.

On Sunday, meanwhile, it was announced that LIV Golf and the South Australia Government had reached an agreement for Adelaide to be home of the circuit’s event in Australia through 2031, which is the biggest signal so far about a desire by those involved for it to be something that is, indeed, here to stay as part of whatever new landscape we are going to see for the game.

Along with lots of others, though, I’m still not even close to being convinced that a) it is popular and b) it is doing anything to grow the game, something that way too many people blurt out these days but, in actual fact, aren’t doing anything in that respect.

It would be interesting to know - and please feel free to get in touch - what impact a recently-announced TV deal that is now seeing the LIV Golf events broadcast on ITV is having in terms of growing an audience in the UK because, and rightly so, a chance for fans to watch the game again on free-to-air TV was trumpeted in the announcement but have the tournaments in either Saudi Arabia or Australia over the past two weeks been of any real interest to anyone?

What we all need to know, of course, is what exactly going to come out of those talks between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and, at long last, it looks as though we could be set for golf’s equivalent of white smoke billowing in the air above the Vatican to signal the election of a new pope.

“I think we're in a very positive place right now,” declared Tiger Woods, a member of the PGA Tour’s player advisory board, during a CBS chat on Sunday. “I think that things are going to heal quickly. We're going to get this game going in the right direction. It's been heading in the wrong direction for a number of years and the fans want all of us to play together, all the top players playing together and we're going to make that happen.”

Hallelujah because a fractured game has been terrible for the sport and, though it will be easier said than done, people are going to have to try and forgive and forget as much as possible. Maybe I’ve started that process myself because, yes, I did buy those Greg Norman trousers!