Thirteen years after he last competed in one, major championships are still proving a reliable source of disappointment for Greg Norman. At last month’s Masters, Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley clearly signaled his support for golf’s existing world order, thereby tacitly rejecting Norman’s Saudi-funded effort to carve off the top of the professional game. On Tuesday at the PGA Championship, the Great White Pilot Fish was served even less nourishment.
In a sport where numbers are decisive, words matter a great deal these days. Norman’s LIV Golf outfit is busy parsing paragraphs for any hint of collusion between golf’s bodies and the PGA Tour, eager to float an anti-trust claim that they’re conspiring to exclude a competitor from the marketplace (never mind that the “competitor” isn’t held to the same profit and loss accountability as other tours). It’s not necessarily collusion if people or organizations reach the same conclusion, of course. Say, for example, agreeing that governments which dismember their critics are suboptimal business partners.
Norman won’t find any evidence of collusion between the PGA of America and the PGA Tour at Southern Hills, but nor will he find any daylight between them either. “We are big supporters of the ecosystem as it stands,” said Seth Waugh, the PGA of America’s CEO.
