‘A powerful gentleman is a gift of money’, goes a Spanish proverb, but in the world of golf it is one of those bubbles in which many of its protagonists are not convinced based on million-dollar offers. The showdown between the PGA Tour and the newborn LIV Golf Investments, backed and managed by Saudi Arabia, is in full swingn although not everyone gets carried away by the siren songs of the zeros. One of them, the Jack Nicklaus myth.
The ‘Golden Bear’, winner of 18 majors and 73 PGA Tour tournaments, has revealed on the ‘Fire Pit Collective’ podcast that he rejected a dizzying figure for being the image of the circuit promoted by the Middle Eastern country that begins its tournaments in London from June 9 to 11. “The Saudis offered me more than 100 million dollars to do work probably similar to what Greg Norman is doing. I turned it down. Once verbally, once in writing. I told them, ‘Guys, I have to stay on the PGA Tour. I helped start the PGA Tour.”
Norman became the face of the project and now many players are in a tirade as the PGA Tour has announced that it will not grant clearances golfers to participate in LIV tournaments despite the fact that some of them had requested it. Among them, Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson or Robert Garrigus. The war has begun but not everyone is on the side of money.
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