LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman has denied rumours his league offered superstar Rory McIlroy a $A1.3 billion deal ($US850 million) to join the circuit, but said the door was always open.
Recently, reports out of the UK claimed the Northern Irishman was considering a mega-money deal to join the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund-backed tour. The speculation raged so severely McIlroy had to shoot down the reports prior to the Masters.
“I honestly don’t know how these things get started,” McIlroy said. “I’ve never been offered a number from LIV, I’ve never contemplated going to LIV.”
It would have been the most stunning backflip in golf given how vehemently opposed and critical McIlroy has been of the league, which runs 54-holes events with shotgun starts and $US25 million prize purses (individual and teams components). McIlroy previously said “if LIV was the last place on earth to play golf, I’d retire.”
On Wednesday at LIV Golf Adelaide, easily the rebel circuit’s biggest event, Norman also said they had never approached McIlroy.
“If you look back over that time period of that dialogue that was going, there wasn’t one comment about LIV,” two-time Open Championship winner Norman said. “LIV never put an offer to him. We didn’t need to make a comment about this. This is just typical white noise that gets out there in the industry.”
But Norman left the possibility out there that if McIlroy wanted to join his 2023 Ryder Cup teammates, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, in leaving the PGA Tour, he would welcome the superstar. Two-time major winner Rahm joined LIV on a reported $US600 million deal in December while Hatton followed early in 2024.
“If Rory was willing to sit down and have a conversation with us, would we be happy to sit down with him? 100 percent, no different than any other player who would be interested in coming on and playing with us,” Norman said.
