Report: Charles Barkley to play in LIV Golf pro-am at Trump Bedminster event as he mulls move

There’s a lot of smoke around Barkley and LIV Golf.

Over the last week the LIV Golf Invitational Series has added three players and one fan-favorite analyst to its upstart team of talent. It appears the Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-funded series its closing in on another beloved broadcaster.

On a recent episode of the Pat McAfee Show, 11-time NBA All-Star and current TNT analyst Charles Barkley said he’d “kill a relative” for $200 million in regards to the reported deals that PGA Tour players have received for joining LIV Golf. Last week Barkley confirmed he’d meet with LIV and on Thursday he told the New York Post that he’s playing in next week’s pro-am for the third event of the series at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

According to the Post, Barkley and Norman met for dinner in Atlanta Wednesday night and discussed what his role would be with LIV. The current LIV broadcast, which is only available via online streaming, boasts former voice of the Premier League on NBC Arlo White, who is in his first foray as a golf announcer. He’s joined in the booth by former Golf Channel analyst Jerry Foltz as well as Dom Boulet.

LIV Golf has long been criticized as a way for the Saudi government to sportswash its human rights record. It offers 54-hole events with no cuts and guaranteed money for the 48-player fields, as well as multi-million dollar deals, some north of $100 million.

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Hayrides, scripted answers, wild parties and clowns (real ones) — here’s what a week at a LIV Golf event is truly like

Players have joined together and found camaraderie as professional golf’s damned.

The battle royale for supremacy between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour has been one of the year’s biggest stories in all of sports, and perhaps the most paramount in professional golf over the past few decades.

Despite covering the upstart entity led by Greg Norman — and financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — since it borrowed the idea from the Premier Golf League, I truly had no idea what to expect when I pulled into Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club for the first day of media access at the LIV Golf Invitational Series event in Portland.

What I learned over the next five days was eye-opening — good and bad. It doesn’t take long to realize there’s a clear market for LIV Golf, it just depends on what you’re looking for in a golf tournament. If you’re an avid fan who loves the game for the history and competition, these events likely won’t be for you. But if you’re a general sports fan who loves festivals and fanfare, it’s possible this will pique your interest.

Here’s what it’s like to spend a week in the life of LIV.

Greg Norman sees a women’s LIV Golf league in the future. But how many would jump?

“The opportunity is there,” Greg Norman said about starting a women’s LIV Golf league. But how many on the LPGA would jump to a potential new league?

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — Greg Norman already is looking toward his next LIV Golf venture.

The CEO of the Saudi-backed golf series is confident a women’s LIV Golf league is in the future.

“One hundred percent. Drop the mic on that,” Norman said when asked if he envisioned a women’s LIV league. He was speaking at LIV’s West Palm Beach offices this week.

“We have discussed it internally, the opportunity is there,” Norman continued. “We’ve actually had one of the most iconic female golfers sitting in this room having a conversation with her. She absolutely loves the whole concept and is behind the whole concept.”

The reason? “Aramco is already the largest sponsor of women’s golf in the world. Aramco, a Saudi company.”

Aramco, the Saudi Arabian integrated energy and chemicals company is in partnership with the Ladies European Tour. The Saudi-backed Aramco Team Series takes place across three continents. A team series aligns with LIV Golf’s team concept that has become the most popular feature of its men’s series.

Aramco is not a corporate partner of the LPGA, but Greg Norman Collection is listed as a licensee partner since 2017.

The Aramco Team Series attracted many of sport’s biggest stars last year, including world No. 7 Lexi Thompson, Jessica Korda and her sister, No. 3 ranked Nelly Korda. The Centurion Club outside of London hosts an Aramco series event and was the site of LIV Golf’s inaugural event.

Greg Norman: ‘Why is it OK for’ women’s golf to be backed by Saudi finance?

“Why is it OK for them and nobody barks at them?” Norman said. “But the boys, they’re barking at you.

“It’s simple, because it all starts out of the headquarters in Jacksonville.”

Norman was referring to the PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who called LIV Golf an “irrational threat” and said it is not concerned with a true growth of the game.

LIV has poached about 20 percent of the top 100 players in the World Golf Rankings with its huge signing bonuses and $25 million purses. Among those are two of the top 20, Jupiter’s Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.

Monahan has suspended anyone who plays a LIV event from the PGA Tour. Some of those, including Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace, have resigned from the PGA Tour. Schwartzel and Grace won the first two LIV events.

Norman called a women’s LIV league “a logical step” as LIV develops and grows its business model.

Cristie Kerr, a two-time major winner, believes most members of the LPGA Tour would defect to a LIV Golf series.

“Put it this way, I think you would see almost the entire tour do it here,” Kerr told Golfweek at last month’s Women’s PGA Championship. “What we play for here compared to the men’s Tour, the scale is different.

“But at the same time, KPMG just upped the purse to $9 million. We’re starting to see a rising tide lifting all the ships. …  It’ll be interesting to see how it affects this tour.”

Karrie Webb, a seven time major winner, said she is concerned that Norman might threaten the LPGA Tour.

“I know that he’s had this vendetta against the PGA Tour as long as I’ve known him,” Webb, like Norman a native of Australia, told Golfweek. “So I don’t think there would be any changing him. I would just ask him that in his ambition to succeed, that he doesn’t ruin women’s golf in the process.”

A women’s LIV Golf League would heighten the cries of Saudi Arabia using “sportswashing” to cover up its record of human rights atrocities. Although women’s rights are growing in the Saudi Arabia, women who join would be aligning themselves with a country that has suppressed women.

Women in Saudi Arabia experience discrimination in relation to marriage, family and divorce, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The government continues to target and repress women’s rights activists.

Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com. 

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LIV Golf, not the 150th Open Championship, dominates R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers’ press conference

“Professional golfers are entitled to choose where they want to play and to accept the prize money that’s offered to them. I have absolutely no issue with that at all. But there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – In his meeting with the media Wednesday at the 150th Open Championship at the home of golf, R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers knew what was coming, and in brief but at times stern remarks addressed a topic that has caused disruption in men’s professional golf.

That would be LIV Golf, the burgeoning rival league led by Greg Norman and backed by Saudi Arabia that has lured some of the game’s biggest names away from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, including Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau.

His remarks, while noteworthy, did nothing to stem the onslaught of questions.

Try as he might, Slumbers could not make the celebration of the 150th Open Championship on the Old Course at the Home of Golf the main talking point.

But he was unwavering in his remarks and answers dealing with LIV Golf.

“Professional golfers are entitled to choose where they want to play and to accept the prize money that’s offered to them. I have absolutely no issue with that at all. But there is no such thing as a free lunch,” Slumbers said. “I believe the model we’ve seen at (London’s) Centurion and (Oregon’s) Pumpkin Ridge (the first two tournaments of LIV Golf) is not in the best long-term interests of the sport as a whole and is entirely driven by money. We believe it undermines the merit-based culture and the spirit of open competition that makes golf so special.

“I would also like to say that, in my opinion, the continued commentary that this is about growing the game is just not credible and if anything, is harming the perception of our sport which we are working so hard to improve.”

When Slumbers was done with his remarks, 16 of the 24 questions had LIV Golf at their heart. One concerned Norman, who was asked not to come for Monday’s Celebration of Champions exhibition and Tuesday’s Champions’ Dinner

“We are absolutely determined to ensure that this goes down in history as about the 150th Open,” Slumbers said. “We decided that there would be, based on noise that I was receiving from multiple sources, that with (Norman’s attendance), that was going to be potentially unlikely.

“We decided that we didn’t want the distraction. We wanted to ensure that the conversation was all about this week and playing golf and balls in the air tomorrow and the Champion Golfer on Sunday.”

Many of the questions concerned the R&A’s potential adjustments to the qualifying and exemption regulations for the oldest championship in golf. This year, those players with LIV Golf were allowed to play.

“We have been asked quite frequently about banning players. Let me be very clear. That’s not on our agenda,” Slumbers said. “But what is on our agenda is that we will review our exemptions and qualifications criteria for the Open. And whilst we do that every year, we absolutely reserve the right to make changes as our Open Championships Committee deems appropriate.

“Players have to earn their place in The Open, and that is fundamental to its ethos and its unique global appeal. We will hold totally true to the Open being open to anybody. But we may well look at how you get into that, whether it’s an exemption or a need to qualify through our qualifying process.

“With that, I’d like to get back to what we are all here for, The 150th Open.”

That proved futile.

The next question dealt with Slumbers’ being on the Board of Directors of the Official World Golf Rankings Association. The OWGR will determine whether LIV Golf will receive world rankings points, which would help some players qualify for the major championships. Slumber said the question needed to be addressed to the chairman of the OWGR.

The next question dealt with the 150th Open.

Greg Norman on DOJ investigating PGA Tour: ‘A testament to (the Tour’s) stupidity’

“Has the PGA brought that on themselves or have we brought that on them? They brought it on themselves,” Greg Norman said.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — Greg Norman did not act surprised when told the Department of Justice is investigating whether the PGA Tour engaged in anticompetitive behavior as it battles the LIV Golf Series.

Why would he be? He called it.

“That is a testament to their stupidity quite honestly,” Norman told the Palm Beach Post. “Instead of sitting down and taking a phone call from us and just say, ‘Hey, work this out. We can do it.’

“It’s such an easy fix it’s ridiculous.”

Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, is the CEO of the Saudi-backed LIV series. LIV’s headquarters are in West Palm Beach.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that players’ agents have been contacted by the DOJ’s antitrust division involving both the PGA Tour’s bylaws governing players’ participation in other golf events and the PGA Tour’s actions in recent months relating to LIV Golf.

Players who have jumped to LIV Golf have been suspended by the PGA Tour. The Tour, though, has not announced the length of the suspensions. That list includes Jupiter’s Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau.

“Has the PGA brought that on themselves or have we brought that on them?” Norman said. “They brought it on themselves. We haven’t done anything else other than putting together a business model and giving independent contractors a right to earn a living doing something else, as well as still being a member of the PGA Tour.

“The entire business model from the ground up was built to coexist within the ecosystem of golf, coexist within the majors, coexist with the DP World Tour, coexist with the PGA Tour, allowing the players to play here and play there.”

After the Tour’s decision to ban LIV players from playing in its events, Norman sent a letter to LIV players and agents accusing the Tour of monopolistic behavior. He wrote the Tour’s actions would “likely cause the federal government to investigate and punish the PGA Tour’s unlawful practices.”

“There is simply no recognized justification for banning independent contractor professional golfers for simply contracting to play professional golf,” he wrote.

A PGA Tour spokesperson confirmed to the Wall Street Journal the Tour was aware of the investigation.

Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com. 

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Tiger Woods agrees with R&A decision to not invite Greg Norman to 150th Open Championship for his involvement with LIV Golf

It’s all very puzzling to Woods.

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Tiger Woods wouldn’t have invited Greg Norman to the 150th playing of the Open Championship at St. Andrews.

The 15-time major champion and three-time Champion Golfer of the Year agreed with the R&A’s decision to reach out to Norman, who is heading the Saudi Arabia-backed rival league called LIV Golf, to tell him his presence at the Celebration on Champions on Monday and the Champions’ Dinner on Tuesday was not welcomed. Norman did not journey to this seaside village.

“Greg has done some things that I don’t think (are) in the best interest of our game, and we’re coming back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport,” Woods said Tuesday after a practice round. “I believe it’s the right thing.

“I know what the PGA Tour stands for and what we have done and what the Tour has given us, the ability to chase after our careers and to earn what we get and the trophies we have been able to play for and the history that has been a part of this game. I know Greg tried to do this back in the early ’90s. It didn’t work then, and he’s trying to make it work now.

“I still don’t see how that’s in the best interests of the game.”

LIV Golf has disrupted the golf world order just two events into its existence. With exorbitant signing bonuses – some as high as $200 million – and $25 million purses, LIV Golf has lured away some big names and players from the PGA Tour – Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia and many others.

LIV Golf will contest eight tournaments this year featuring team play, 54 holes, no cuts and shotgun starts.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan indefinitely banned players who jumped ship to LIV Golf from the Tour. This has led the Justice Department to investigate the PGA Tour for anti-competitive behavior and possible conspiracy to rig the Official World Golf Rankings against LIV Golf in its dealings with the league.

“About the players who have chosen to go to LIV, I disagree with it,” Woods said. “I think that what they’ve done is they’ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position. Some players have never got a chance to even experience it. They’ve gone right from the amateur ranks right into that organization and never really got a chance to play out here and what it feels like to play a Tour schedule or to play in some big events.

“And who knows what’s going to happen in the near future with world ranking points, the criteria for entering major championships. Some of these players may not ever get a chance to play in major championships. That is a possibility.”

It’s all very puzzling to Woods.

“I just don’t understand it. I understand what Jack (Nicklaus) and Arnold (Palmer) did because playing professional golf at a Tour level versus a club pro is different, and I understand that transition and that move and the recognition that a touring pro versus a club pro is,” he said. “But what these players are doing for guaranteed money, what is the incentive to practice? What is the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You’re just getting paid a lot of money upfront and playing a few events and playing 54 holes. They’re playing blaring music and have all these atmospheres that are different.

“I can understand 54 holes is almost like a mandate when you get to the (PGA Champions) Tour. The guys are a little bit older and a little more banged up. But when you’re at this young age and some of these kids – they really are kids who have gone from amateur golf into that organization – 72-hole tests are part of it,” Woods said. “I just don’t see how that move is positive in the long term for a lot of these players.”

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‘It was very petty’: Greg Norman reacts to getting shut out of 150th Open Championship events

“I still can play,” Norman said. “I know I can still play.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — First, Greg Norman was told he was not invited to play the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews.

Then he received the letter saying he was not welcome to play in a four-hole exhibition at the Old Course and not to show up at the Champions’ Dinner.

The two-time Open champion and CEO of the LIV Golf Series chalked it up as another “petty” decision in the ongoing golf wars.

“There have been a lot of dumb decisions made, quite honestly, and this one seemed as if it was very petty,” Norman told the Palm Beach Post Monday. He was talking from LIV’s headquarters in West Palm Beach.

Norman’s request to play in this week’s tournament was not unusual.

Yes, he is 67, but he said he recently broke his age in a round at the Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound. But the Hall of Famer with 20 PGA Tour titles and more than 90 worldwide wins has become an outcast since joining the breakaway tour being financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

“Governing bodies should stay above the fray,” said Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens. “They should be Switzerland. For them to stoop to this level … as a past Open champion and all I’ve done for the game of golf on a global basis, I fit the model of what the R&A is all about, right? The Royal and Ancient growing the game of golf on the grassroots level. They only have to look at what I’ve been doing in Vietnam growing the game of golf. That’s why it’s so petty.”

The Open was first played at the Old Course at St. Andrews in 1873 and this will be the 30th time at the venue. Norman won the 1986 Open at Turnberry in Scotland and the 1993 Open at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich.

“I still can play,” Norman said. “I know I can still play.

“Looking at the weather conditions, it’s very hot and very dry so the ball is rolling, running out pretty good. That’s right up my alley. Who knows.”

Norman’s last competitive round of golf was the 2012 Senior Open Championship. His last major was the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry. He shot a 77-75 and missed the cut.

Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at the Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

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Jack Nicklaus on Greg Norman’s role in LIV Golf: ‘He and I just don’t see eye to eye in what’s going on’

Jack Nicklaus weighed in on Greg Norman’s role with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman are going to have to agree to disagree on the state of men’s professional golf.

When asked to comment on the R&A’s decision to not invite Norman, a two-time winner of the Claret Jug in 1986 and 1993, to the Celebration of Champions and the Champions’ Dinner and golf exhibition to be played on Monday, Nicklaus at first demurred.

“I don’t know much about it, to be honest with you,” Nicklaus said.

But eventually he weighed in on Norman’s role with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, which continues to make waves in the world of golf.

“Let me just sum this up with a couple of words,” Nicklaus said. “First of all, Greg Norman is an icon in the game of golf. He’s a great player. We’ve been friends for a long time, and regardless of what happens, he’s going to remain a friend. Unfortunately, he and I just don’t see eye to eye in what’s going on. I’ll basically leave it at that.”

The R&A released a statement over the weekend that read: “The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the championship and its heritage. Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend. We hope that when circumstances allow Greg will be able to attend again in future.”

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Lynch: Greg Norman’s exclusion from the Open Championship at St. Andrews should be cheered—he’s earned it

Norman’s current endeavors have considerably more bearing than his past achievements.

It’s a sign of how far Greg Norman has traveled on the low road to perdition that the major championships he once elevated with his presence have come to believe that even exhibitions and dinners can only benefit from his absence.

That sentiment was apparent in April when Augusta National didn’t send Norman an invitation to attend the Masters, which it customarily extends to all living (non-imprisoned) major winners. Now the R&A has declined to invite the Great White Pilot Fish to the Celebration of Champions exhibition in St. Andrews on Monday or to Tuesday’s champions dinner (not a consideration back in Georgia). Augusta National and the R&A are not organizations prone to discourtesies. They don’t do oversights, or at least not accidentally.

“We contacted Greg Norman to advise him that we decided not to invite him to attend on this occasion,” said the R&A. “The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the Championship and its heritage. Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend.”

“I’m disappointed. I would have thought the R&A would have stayed above it all given their position in world golf,” Norman said. “[It’s] petty, as all I have done is promote and grow the game of golf globally, on and off the golf course, for more than four decades.”

The it all to which Norman obliquely refers is relevant. While he’d like to peddle a narrative that the R&A is being picayune and ignoring his past accomplishments, what the governing body is actually doing is acknowledging his present activities. And those activities don’t involve the promotion or growth of golf but rather its wholesale whoring for the purposes of Saudi sportswashing, a difference that might not be as obvious to Norman as it is to folks who don’t conflate the good of the game with their personal enrichment and score-settling.

‘It’s the right thing to do’: Rory McIlroy explains his role in leading resistance against LIV Golf

The reality is that Norman’s current endeavors have considerably more bearing than his past achievements in determining whether he ought to be invited to events at which many attendees regard him with barely disguised contempt.

Despite Norman’s insinuation, this isn’t a case of the R&A reflexively choosing sides with the PGA and DP World tours in a commercial dispute with his Saudi-funded LIV Golf. The decision was selfish, sure, but it was made purely in the interests of the R&A, the Open and its ancillary events, not in the interests of Jay Monahan or Keith Pelley.

Norman has already shown an eagerness to use the 150th Open Championship for cheap stunts intended to raise both his profile and that of his new venture. As when he demanded a spot in the St. Andrews field at age 67, despite his earned exemption having expired at age 60, and gone unused since he was 54. Had he genuinely wished to compete, Norman could have followed the example of Sandy Lyle, the 64-year-old champion from 1985, who entered qualifying this year. Lyle didn’t make it but he tried the only route available. He didn’t demand an exemption to which he wasn’t entitled, but then Lyle isn’t known to have a larger-than-life bust of himself in his garden either.

The Celebration of Champions is a charming event particular to St. Andrews, where past winners play a short loop on the Old Course to kickstart the week on golf’s greatest stage. There will be a robust turnout of greats Monday afternoon. Anyone who believes that would be the case if Norman were also present knows nothing of how he is viewed by many of his fellow players. Similarly, fewer place settings would be needed for a champions dinner that included him.

The R&A’s decision signals something that, while increasingly evident, has not been stated explicitly. Which is that golf’s most powerful organizations will—when possible, without compromising their championships—impede the stooges who would auction the sport to MBS. Those bodies clearly grasp how ruinous LIV’s success would be to golf’s image and its broader economy as corporate marketing dollars search for safer harbors.

More: LIV Golf’s unspoken secret — players are ripping off the Saudis

Fred Ridley signaled his support for the existing order at the Masters. The PGA of America’s Seth Waugh, who runs both a major and the Ryder Cup, has repeatedly done so. Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA, couldn’t alter the U.S. Open’s criteria but suggested he was amenable to doing so in the future. And even prior to this week, the R&A’s Martin Slumbers fired a warning shot by removing the exemption into the Open previously granted to the winner of the Asian Tour’s order of merit, a move made after that circuit spreadeagled itself for Saudi cash.

Decisions have consequences, a lesson learned often by Norman at major championships.

LIV Golf is a tumor that grows by diminishing everything around it—major championships, established tournaments, tours, formerly estimable venues and, not least, reputations. The thing about ruined reputations is that, at a certain point, the owner of the sullied name becomes impervious to the stain, which instead smears those with whom he associates. It is to the R&A’s credit that it is willing to stiff-arm a man who aims to cheapen the entire sport just to enrich himself at the teat of a tyrant.

The R&A to Greg Norman: Stay away from the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews

Norman won the Open Championship in 1986 at Turnberry and in 1993 at Royal St. George’s.

The R&A said no way to Greg Norman.

The ruler of the game’s Rules of Golf outside the U.S. and Mexico who also stage the Open Championship announced Saturday it had reached out to Norman to tell him he was not invited to play in the Celebration of Champions on Monday.

Norman, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, won the Open Championship in 1986 at Turnberry and in 1993 at Royal St. George’s. But Norman is the head of LIV Golf, the Saudi Arabia-backed rival league that has lured top stars away from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and caused angst in golf’s world order.

“In response to enquiries regarding the R&A Celebration of Champions field and the Champions’ Dinner, we can confirm that we contacted Greg Norman to advise him that we decided not to invite him to attend on this occasion,” the R&A said in a statement. “The 150th Open is an extremely important milestone for golf and we want to ensure that the focus remains on celebrating the Championship and its heritage. Unfortunately, we do not believe that would be the case if Greg were to attend. We hope that when circumstances allow, Greg will be able to attend again in the future.”

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