The LIV Golf-PGA Merger Part One – Sports Bizarre

We have a treat, two episodes this week, on the LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger. The second episode will be out Wednesday unless you’re a Bizarre Plus member, then you’ll have both today.

In this episode, we trace the history of breakaway leagues in golf. The first being the PGA Tour splitting from the PGA of America, caused by a dispute between Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope.

Then look at an attempted breakaway league in 1994, the World Golf Tour, led by none other than Greg Norman.

Titus O’Reily and Mick Molloy then look at how Greg Norman launched his revenge on the PGA Tour thirty years later.

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Resources

Jane Cadzow, ‘We need to talk about Greg Norman’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December 2022.

Greg Norman, Way of the Shark: Lessons on golf, business, and life, Atria Books, 2007.

Thomas Boswell, ‘Norman Golfing for Greed in Plans for World Tour’, Washington Post, 18 November 1994.

Dave Seanor, ‘A man and an idea ahead of their time’, Sports Illustrated, 14 November 2019.

Bob Harig, ‘A Disruptor to the PGA Tour Is Here, and Professional Golf May Never Be the Same’, Sports Illustrated, 10 June 2022.

Cydney Henderson, ‘“We’ve all made mistakes”: Greg Norman downplays the killing of journalist while promoting Saudi backed golf league’, USA Today, 11 May 2022.

David Rowe, ‘How Saudi Arabia came to be at the centre of a global golf merger’, The Conversation, 7 June 2023.

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