Greg Norman always believed LIV Golf, PGA Tour should come together

The PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV Golf, who have been embroiled in a year-long bitter rivalry, have agreed to merge, they each announced Tuesday morning.

The tours, including the DP World Tour, signed an agreement that would combine their commercial businesses and rights into a new company. The move is thought to be a big win for the sport, which had become divided.

“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “This transformational partnership recognizes the immeasurable strength of the PGA Tour’s history, legacy and pro-competitive model and combines with it the DP World Tour and LIV — including the team golf concept — to create an organization that will benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.

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“Going forward, fans can be confident that we will, collectively, deliver on the promise we’ve always made — to promote competition of the best in professional golf and that we are committed to securing and driving the game’s future.”

The tours have been embroiled in a year-long bitter rivalry that has included insults being hurled back and forth by LIV commissioner and CEO Greg Norman and Monahan along with several lawsuits. As part of the new deal, those lawsuits will be dropped.

Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, was behind the creation of LIV Golf. The league, financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, has come under fire for what detractors say is a form of “sportswashing,” with Saudi Arabia attempting to distract from its atrocious human rights violations.

From the start, Norman was seeking collaboration from the PGA Tour and told The Palm Beach Post last summer he believed a LIV-PGA Tour merger was in the future.

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“One hundred percent I do,” Norman said when asked if he believed the two tours could come together. “Jay Monahan, if he had the decency to take our meetings right from the get-go, none of this stuff would be in place today. The game of golf would be in a much better place. The Tour would be in a much better place. European golf would be in a much better place.

“In the world of business if you got a competitor coming to challenge you, understand what your competitor’s got by sitting down and signing an NDA, having a conversation and see (what) works for us.”

Norman said he did not attend last year's QBE Shootout, the event he founded more than three decades ago and has been played in Naples since 2001, because of his involvement with LIV Golf.

"In some people’s mind(s) this is too disruptive and evolution is perceived as a bad thing," Norman wrote in an Instagram post at the time.

QBE Shootout tournament director Rob Hartman said event organizers had discussions with Norman about his role as QBE host for months and all parties made a collective decision for Norman not to attend.

"As we got close, ultimately the decision was made that he was going to step back and really let the focus remain on our tremendous charitable partners," Hartman said last September. "When he started this event 34 years ago, it was all about charity then and it's all about charity now. Greg just made the decision that he didn't want anything to distract from that."

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: LIV Golf, PGA Tour: Greg Norman always thought merger should happen