Greg Norman has stayed quiet since leaving LIV Golf, watching from the sidelines as the league he helped build moved toward the bankruptcy filing announced this week. Now, in his first major comments since the filing, the Shark has finally spoken out. Norman says LIV Golf did not have to end up in bankruptcy court. According to the man who built the league from scratch, its collapse was not inevitable.
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Norman sat down with golf reporter Flushing It for an interview posted on X, where he reflected on his LIV tenure, the bankruptcy, and life since stepping away. He was candid about where things stand these days. Norman was much warmer when talking about the staff he built.
“Many of the staff still stay in touch,” he said “They’re wonderful people. I always said ‘I’ll let you fail, but I’ll never let you be a failure.’ We were building the plane on the runway, but I had to let them go and do their thing. They had an unlimited budget, but I couldn’t allow them to lose control. We had a great working relationship and they called for advice after I left, which meant a lot. It was a real family spirit.”
Norman said he gave his staff the freedom to do their work and learn from their mistakes. He said he let them do their thing while remaining available to give advice when they needed it.
Norman said he has been enjoying himself and is back to doing what he does best, looking for new opportunities, starting new ventures, and working in golf course design and real estate. He added that he has no plans to slow down.
On the bankruptcy, Norman did not sound surprised. Instead, he seemed to accept that it was coming. “I think everyone could see it coming,” he said.
He added that Chapter 11 gives LIV some flexibility and made sense after the PIF stopped funding the league. Norman also questioned what LIV means when it says it wants a “sustainable business model,” before adding that he was sure O’Neil had a plan. For a man who spent three years building LIV, Norman’s comments show just how far he has now stepped away from the league.
But the bigger story is what Norman said about LIV’s business when he left. According to Norman, the league was not in trouble when he handed control to Scott O’Neil. He said LIV was “tracking extremely well” and had “huge opportunities in the future that were recommended but not taken.”
Norman did not share many details about those ideas, but he did talk about one plan he really liked. He wanted national golf bodies to help run LIV’s teams. For example, a Japanese team could have been run by the Japan Golf Tour. These bodies would have helped choose the players, while the money and value created by the team would go back into golf in that country. Norman’s comments suggest that LIV had a clear way to grow, but the league chose a different path.
Norman officially left LIV last September after his contract ended. He had already stepped away from the league’s daily work in January 2025, when O’Neil became CEO. O’Neil had more than 25 years of experience running organizations such as the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils, and Merlin Entertainments.
At the time, LIV chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan praised Norman and called him “instrumental to LIV’s success.” Even Rory McIlroy, who had often criticized Norman, said the change in leadership was “probably a good move.” Less than 20 months later, LIV filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Norman also used the interview to defend himself against another claim that has followed him since LIV began. Some people believed he wanted to destroy the PGA Tour. Norman strongly denied that. He said people judged LIV without knowing the full story and called that unfair. He also said he had always supported golf in the U.S. and that the PGA Tour had always been important to him. According to Norman, he never wanted to destroy the PGA Tour because he did not believe that would make sense.
Norman’s version of the story is clear. He does not believe LIV was doomed from the start. Instead, he says the league was doing well and had many chances to grow when he left. In his view, things changed after new leadership took over and the PIF funding came to an end.
Whether that story matches LIV’s financial situation is another question. But as LIV now tries to present “LIV 2.0” as a fresh start, Norman has made one thing clear: he does not believe the league had to end up in bankruptcy.