Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson have an interesting week at LIV Golf

LIV Golf had another active week before and after Brooks Koepka won in Singapore for his first title of the year.

Greg Norman, the CEO of the Saudi-funded league, made some bold comments in an interview with Bloomberg that indicated the LIV wasn’t going anywhere.

He said Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund that invested billions in the PGA Tour’s rival league, told him that LIV Golf “will be well and truly in operation long after his death.”

“And he’s a young guy,” Norman said.

Shark also threw out the idea of ​​LIV purchasing golf courses that would serve as team headquarters, as well as in team sports. And to top it off, he defied criticism that no one was tuning in to watch.

“What is the definition of attunement?” he asked Bloomberg. “For an 18-year-old, for a 25-year-old, tuning in can take 12 seconds on the phone. “Let me look at this, then we’ll come back and do this, and then I’ll come back here and do another 14 seconds on this.”

“That to me is tune,” he said. “This for me is an extremely rich market, right? And hugely influential in where we’re going.”

As for the majors, let Phil Mickelson take it from there. He saw a post from X on Sunday that said LIV should prioritize its players’ access to championships.

Mickelson responded in a post he later deleted: “Maybe some LIV players are not missed. But what if NONE of the LIV players played? Would they miss it? And next year, when more big players come in? Or the following year? At some point they will care and have to respond to sponsors and television. FAAFO”.

The abbreviation is slang for “(Expletive) go around and find out”. The next day, Talor Gooch and David Puig were among the LIV players who accepted invitations to the PGA Championship.

Not everything was racy.

LIV announced that longtime Pepsi executive Adam Harter would be its new chief marketing officer. This follows the appointments of a chief financial officer, two executive vice presidents and two other hires.

It certainly doesn’t look like the LIV Golf is going anywhere.

A deal announced six months ago is paying dividends for the LPGA Tour this week.

ESPN+ and LPGA have signed a two-year deal for eight tournaments to be broadcast live during the 2025 season. In a fortuitous twist, one of those tournaments is the Cognizant Founders Cup.

Attention numbers are high as Nelly Korda tries to set an LPGA Tour record with six straight wins. Her victory at the Chevron Championship three weeks ago tied the mark shared by Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam.

The Golf Channel typically offers LPGA coverage. But the PGA Tour has two tournaments (Wells Fargo Championship and Myrtle Beach), and the PGA Tour Champions has one major championship (Regions Tradition).

The Cognizant Cup was originally scheduled to be shown on tape delay (7pm to 9pm weekdays, 8:30pm to 10:30pm weekend). It will now be available on the NBC Sports App and Peacock.

ESPN+ will stream nearly 40 hours of featured group coverage from 8am to 6:30pm on weekdays and 8am to 5pm on the weekend. Amy Rogers is leading the all-female primary broadcast team.

The PGA Tour’s next marquee event will be without the Masters champion and runner-up. Scottie Scheffler never planned to play in the Wells Fargo Championship because his wife was about to give birth to their first child. The surprise was Ludvig Aberg.

Sweden’s rising star announced on Monday that he was withdrawing, releasing limited details except to say he has a “knee problem” that requires rest.

“After consulting with my doctors, we feel it is best to take some additional time to rest,” Aberg said in a statement, adding that he hopes to play in the PGA Championship at Valhalla next week.

He is not being replaced at Quail Hollow because Peter Malnati would be next in line for the top 10 available in the FedEx Cup, and Malnati is already eligible as a PGA Tour winner this year. That leaves a field of 69 players – meaning someone will emerge as a single – for the third consecutive signature event.

San Francisco’s four-man team for the technology-driven TGL league has the basketball experience for an all-world golf team.

Former Milwaukee Bucks Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund owns The Bay Golf Club, along with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala, two current and one retired Golden State Warriors players.

The list includes Ludvig Aberg from Sweden, Shane Lowry from Ireland, Min Woo Lee from Australia and Wyndham Clark from Denver.

All matches will be played in Florida, in an indoor arena that will be ready for launch in January at the SoFi Center. The indoor league, which was to be broadcast in prime time on ESPN and ESPN+, was postponed a year when an inflatable roof collapsed.

“We believe The Bay Golf Club will be a beloved team in Northern California and beyond,” Lasry said.

TGL is the brainchild of TMRW Sports launched by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

Webb Simpson is playing his eighth tournament of the year at the Wells Fargo Championship, four of them earning sponsor exemptions for exclusive $20 million events.

It’s easy to suggest that it’s an advantage to serve on the PGA Tour board. Simpson earned exemptions to the Arnold Palmer Invitational (he was a Palmer/Buddy Worsham Scholar at Wake Forest), RBC Heritage (former 2020 champion) and the Wells Fargo Championship (he is a member of Quail Hollow).

The suspected exemption was from AT&T Pebble Beach, especially when Gary Woodland didn’t get one while recovering from brain surgery and won his U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

But there is no doubt about the potential benefit, even without finishing better than 30th.

Simpson was eliminated in three regular tournaments, earning $63,606 (19 FedEx Cup points). In the three exclusive events with small fields, he collected $270,125 (74 FedEx Cup points).

He is No. 151 in the FedEx Cup standings.

Ashley Shaw, a 15-year-old amateur from Arizona, makes her LPGA debut this week in the Cognizant Founders Cup. She won the John Shippen Cognizant Cup on Monday in Upper Montclair to earn a spot in the field. The John Shippen Series was created to provide LPGA and PGA Tour playing opportunities for top Black golfers. … Aon Swing Five’s most recent stretch for exclusive events was heavily weighted toward the latest tournament. So it’s no surprise that CJ Cup Byron Nelson’s top three players – Taylor Pendrith, Ben Kohles and Alex Noren – moved into the top five on the list and earned a spot in the Wells Fargo Championship. Chad Ramey and Martin Trainer, who lost in the playoffs at the team event in New Orleans, were eliminated. … The Women’s Scottish Open returns to Dundonald Links, around 20 minutes from Royal Troon, for the third year running, from 15-18 August. … Aaron Rai closed with a 64 at the Byron Nelson, which moved him to No. 69 on the PGA Championship points list and secured his spot in Valhalla.

Taylor Pendrith became the fifth player this year to fall outside the top 100 in the world rankings by winning a PGA Tour event with full FedEx Cup points.

“The pure pleasure you feel when having children, there is nothing like it. The stress you feel about having kids, there’s nothing like it.” – Jason Day, former world number 1 and father of five children.

___

AP Golf: