Norman had phrases for critics after a well-attended LIV occasion.
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It was a festive three days at LIV Golf Adelaide, in Australia, with rowdy crowds and record-setting attendance for the breakaway circuit. And when the ultimate putts dropped and the throngs dispersed, the celebration saved on going, turning right into a pity occasion.
“I actually feel sorry for them,” LIV CEO Greg Norman stated.
The objects of his sympathy, Norman stated, in an interview with Australian Golf Digest, have been LIV Golf’s critics, a benighted bunch in Norman’s view.
“Vindication is not the right word,” he stated. “It’s the ignorance of others who simply didn’t understand what we were trying to do.”
Norman’s feedback got here within the wake of an occasion that drew greater than 94,000 followers to the Grange Golf Club, essentially the most for a LIV Golf event for the reason that league’s launch almost two years in the past.
Pleased by the numbers, Norman stated that he was additionally grateful for the possibility to offer followers in his residence nation the sort of sporting leisure they deserved.
“The support Australia gave me during my own playing career for decades was something I have never forgotten,” he stated. “It’s why I brought LIV Golf back home. I did it for them. The people have well and truly spoken.”
For all the large names it has poached from the PGA Tour, and regardless of the bottomless bankroll behind it, LIV has hardly killed it on the rankings entrance with its crew format, 54-hole tournaments. But in relative phrases, Australia has been a receptive market. Last yr’s occasion at Adelaide, which drew some 77,000 followers, was the best-attended LIV event of 2023.
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In its quick life, the occasion has gained a fame as LIV’s reply to the Tour’s famously raucous Waste Management Phoenix Open. Though Adelaide attracts nowhere close to the identical measurement crowds, its spectators have proven the same affinity for non-traditional golf habits. This week, for occasion, on the par-3 twelfth, which is called the “watering hole” for its loud and well-lubricated ambiance, Lucas Herbert’s caddie was struck at the back of the pinnacle by a water bottle flung by a fan after Herbert drained a birdie putt. The caddie, Nick Pugh, was not injured, however the incident was a sobering reminder of how rapidly rowdy conduct can get out of hand.
By event’s finish, the group had different causes to get excited. While American Brendan Steele gained the person competitors, the crew portion of the occasion went to Ripper GC, captained by Australian star Cameron Smith. His squad gained in a playoff over Stinger GC.
Not everybody was thrilled with that end result, or the fan habits that accompanied it. On the primary gap of the playoff, Dean Burmester of Stinger grew visibly annoyed with the partisan crowd, which cheered when he left a shot in a green-side bunker. Earlier within the day, Burmester had reportedly informed the group to close up with a command punctuated by an expletive.
None of which appeared to weigh on Norman, who, within the afterglow of the proceedings, stated that pity wasn’t all that he was feeling.
“I’m feeling extremely proud right now,” he stated. “With what we’ve gone through over the past 16 months, both as a league and what I’ve copped personally, the hatred, this makes it all worthwhile.”
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