What’s good for the goose: Shark bites back at PGA ‘hypocrisy’
Greg Norman has accused the PGA Tour of “deafening hypocrisy” following the backlash to his Saudi-funded LIV Golf Invitational Series.
Greg Norman says he wants to become golf's equivalent of Kerry Packer. (Photo: Getty images)
Australian golf great Norman is the figurehead of the controversial, Saudi Arabia-backed breakaway competition, which started earlier this month with a tournament outside London.
Critics have accused LIV Golf as being another method of ‘sportswashing’ from the Saudi regime.
Players that competed in the inaugural LIV Golf event have been suspended from the PGA Tour.
However, Norman has hit back and claimed the PGA Tour is showing hypocrisy, with the Australian citing sponsorship money that is raked in from Saudi Arabia.
“Look, if they want to look at it in prism, then why does the PGA Tour have 23 sponsors within the PGA Tour doing 40 plus billion dollars worth of business with Saudi Arabia?” he told Fox News.
“Why is it okay for the sponsors? Why is it okay that there’s a Saudi sponsor, Aramco, the largest sponsor of women’s golf in the world? Why is it OK for them? Why is it not OK for these players?
“Will [PGA Tour commissioner] Jay Monahan go to each and every one of those CEOs of the 23 companies that are investing into Saudi Arabia and suspend them and ban them?
“The hypocrisy in all this, it’s so loud. It’s deafening.”
Norman added: “The European Tour since 2009, had a golf tournament, the Saudi International that’s in existence since 2019.
“And during that Saudi International, there were PGA Tour players who were given rights and waivers to go play there.
“So to me, if golf is good for the world, golf is good for Saudi, and you’re seeing that growth internally, it’s extremely impressive.”
