Masters: LIV Golf is coming for all the majors, with Greg Norman cheering them on — invited or not

AUGUSTA, Ga. — "That guy looks just like Greg Norman," someone says on the crosswalk near the second tee, and there's a good reason for that: It was Greg Norman his own self, sporting his trademark straw shark-logo hat and walking the course just like any other everyday patron at the Masters.

Norman was unable, according to his son, to obtain a badge from Augusta National itself, and instead had to find a badge on the secondary market. (Good luck staying anonymous to whoever sold Norman that ticket.) The irony loomed as high as the pines around the course — on the same day that Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, in their green jackets, called for the reunification of golf, Norman, as responsible as anyone for the sport's split, walked outside the ropes at Augusta National.

Three times, Norman had one arm in a green jacket of his own, and three times, Norman either threw it away or had it yanked away. It’s worth wondering how golf history would have changed had Norman joined golf’s most exclusive fraternity.

But that’s what could have been, and here’s what is: Golf right now is as broken as it’s ever been, split in two pieces, with champions on both sides of the fault line.

Norman, who declined comment on the day’s events, watched his prize catch — defending champion Jon Rahm — work through Augusta National’s opening holes. As he did on Wednesday, Norman cheered on his LIV charges like a Ryder Cup captain in an us-against-them campaign on foreign soil.

A few groupings ahead of Rahm, fellow LIV player Bryson DeChambeau finally carried through on his 2020 promise to conquer Augusta National, carding a 7-under 65 to take the clubhouse lead.

With Norman at the helm, LIV Golf began play in 2022, offering monstrous Saudi Arabia-backed paydays for 54-hole, no-cut golf tournaments. Several notable PGA Tour veterans, including DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, signed on to LIV at its inception, and many more, including Brooks Koepka and Cam Smith, soon followed. The two tours then spent all of 2022 and half of 2023 locked in a battle of legal filings and escalating spending.

The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the financial backer of LIV, announced a surprise “framework agreement” in June 2023 that effectively ended all legal hostilities on the promise of plans to work together to form a new entity to manage men’s professional golf. But the two sides blew right through a self-imposed Dec. 31 deadline for the agreement. Each side then took action — LIV poaching Rahm, the Tour bringing in other outside investment — that seemed to reduce the likelihood of an agreement at all.

While both sides shored up their financial operations, the game of golf remained in critical condition. Only four times a year — during the majors — do the world's finest players tee it up against one another. As remarkable as this week promises to be, it will be repeated only three more times in 2024 unless and until the two sides can hammer out some sort of agreement.

“The best outcome,” Nicklaus said Thursday morning, "is the best players play against each other all the time.”

Until then, LIV Golf is coming for all the majors, with Norman cheering them on — invited or not.

Right now, LIV technically claims two of the reigning major winners — Rahm won the Masters before he was a LIV member — and 14 major champions overall. This year’s Masters field includes 13 LIV Golf players, including seven past champions. LIV has dusted its early rep as a final payday for over-the-hill former stars, and now boasts half a dozen legitimate threats to win any major for the foreseeable future.

DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open champion, put himself in perfect position after Day 1. On a soft afternoon, DeChambeau topped a fully red leaderboard with a second-nine 31. He dropped five birdies in six holes from 12 to 17, and he’ll have plenty of time to rest up for a Friday afternoon start.

“I think if a LIV player were to win, including myself, I think we'd all be extremely excited and happy for whoever that individual is,” DeChambeau said Monday. “I'm not so sure for the other side, but that's for them to make up their own emotional state.”

That will give Greg Norman plenty to smile about, no matter where he’s standing.