Greg Norman would have us believe that 17 additional LIV golfers will storm the 18th green at Augusta on Sunday if one of their own is the proud wearer of the Green Jacket.
Those that have missed the cut are unlikely to be hanging around while many of the 18 LIV golfers in the field have preferred not to ruffle feathers since joining the rebel tour.
But a LIV winner of the Masters would be a feather in the cap for Saudi Arabian-backed big-money series but not in the bombastic way that Norman would like to make out.
Cameron Smith put it more eloquently when he suggested it would give LIV and its golfers relevance, and prove they are proper golfers in their own right.
As the Australian put it, “I think it’s just important for LIV guys to be up there because I think we need to be up there. There’s a lot of chatter about these guys don’t play real golf, these guys don’t play real golf courses.”
The Open champion has every right to feel that way and, with four top-10 finishes at Augusta in only five starts, he is perhaps best set of his renegades to triumph come the end of the weekend.
For yet another major, the build-up to this Masters has again been about LIV against the traditional golfing fraternity.
One of the rebels in Bubba Watson, himself a former Masters champion, tried to make out the fractiousness was a mere media fabrication. But Rory McIlroy is among those to make no secret of the fact that friendships have been lost amid the barbs and the legal wranglings.
Round one has gone the way of the traditionalists with Sports Resolutions ruling that the DP World Tour was within its rights to suspend LIV rebels for two weeks and fine them £100,000 each. That merely feels like the start of an expensive and lengthy legal fight, with another case looming early next year regarding the PGA Tour’s own position.
The us-vs-them debate is too simplistic a descriptive beyond the bosses of the respective tours. Relations clearly remain good between the likes of LIV players Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, and their former PGA Tour peers. McIlroy, arguably the biggest anti-LIV mouthpiece on tour, has been practising and rubbing shoulders with both in Augusta.
Although tellingly airtime has been limited for LIV’s representatives, Smith the sole protagonist from the breakaway series put forward for the pre-tournament press conferences.
That the LIV debate is in the spotlight again this week is no media creation in what could become an increasingly rare coming together between the traditional tours and LIV players if the legal decisions continue to go against LIV and world ranking points are still not on offer for its players.
But also the Masters as a tournament is bigger than the current schism in golf, which will now become a mere afterthought with the first round under way.
For the 18 – the likes of Patrick Reed, Bryson DeChambeau and Sergio Garcia in addition to those already mentioned - there is pressure to fly the flag this week for LIV beyond their apparent legal obligations to wear LIV uniforms.
As McIlroy put it: “I think that only puts more pressure on them. They are not just playing for themselves but they are playing for this cause. Look, this tournament is bigger than all of that. It’s a narrative and a storyline but the Masters sits above all that noise and that’s the way it should be this week.
“It’s just great that all of the best players in the world are together again for the first time in what seems to be quite a while.”
As for McIlroy, there is pressure of a different kind after his barnstorming finish last year and with the ability for him to complete the clean sweep of the Majors if the stars align.
A LIV versus PGA or DP World Tour player down the final stretch for the Green Jacket would be mouth-watering as was the duel between McIlroy and Reed in Dubai at the start of the year.
As for Norman storming the 18th green, that won’t happen with the Australian absent from Augusta. And his rebel players are surely unlikely to follow through with his threat.
