Rory McIlroy has said that Greg Norman’s departure as CEO of LIV Golf is “probably a good move” while Jon Rahm believes it gives the Saudi-backed league a “less threatening image.”
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LIV is moving forward with sports executive Scott O’Neil as its CEO, effectively ending the already fading war of words between Norman — who helped get the league off the ground — and McIlroy.
McIlroy, one of LIV’s most outspoken critics in the early days, heaped praise on O’Neil’s resume.
“[O’Neil] has an amazing track record with what he has done in sports in terms of managing teams and groups of teams, ownership groups,” McIlroy said at the Dubai Desert Classic. “He has got the right credentials to take over a sports league. I think for LIV it is probably a good move now they are established.”
O’Neil has served as CEO of the parent company of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils, president of Madison Square Garden and CEO of amusement park and resort company Merlin Entertainments Group.
He was officially confirmed as the new CEO on Wednesday, with LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan saying in a statement O’Neil “has the passion, the tenacity and the vision to continue leveraging LIV Golf’s position as a pre-eminent, global sports and entertainment company and to lead our amazing teams and players for years to come.”
Norman, the 1986 and 1983 Open champion who will continue with the league in an ambiguous role, often came off as divisive when LIV entered the golf scene. He called McIlroy “brainwashed by the PGA Tour” in 2022, putting Norman in the four-time major champion’s crosshairs.
McIlroy blamed him in part for golf’s “civil war,” saying later that year that he should “exit stage left” to allow the “adults” to patch up the sport’s schism.
The Northern Irishman commented on Norman in a much more pacifying manner in Dubai.
“Greg took a lot of flak the first couple of years,” McIlroy said. “He is probably one of the only guys in golf who could have taken on that role. He got it off the ground, and you have to commend him for that. Now it’s time for someone with a bit more experience to take over.
“I honestly don’t know what the future holds for [LIV], but the move they are making, especially from an executive standpoint, it doesn’t look like they are going to go away anytime soon.”
Rahm, who joined LIV in September 2023, also felt the CEO change was a move in the right direction for the breakaway circuit.
The Spanish golfer believes it will help improve LIV’s position amid negotiations for an investment deal with the rival PGA Tour, with talks on their “framework agreement” having made little apparent progress.
“Unfortunately, there’s been a little bit — possibly a little too much — bad blood between Greg and maybe the governing bodies,” Rahm said. “And to have somebody outside of that might help the situation.
“I think having an outsider — I say outsider because he has not been involved — could be a very good thing when it comes to him sitting down at the table with the other governing bodies.
“I think an outside perspective, and possibly a less threatening image, might help that, as well.”
There is already less animosity between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour in 2025 than there was when LIV started.
McIlroy and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler defeated LIV members Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in an exhibition match in December, the first such exhibition match pitting stars from the sport’s two main entities.
McIlroy said O’Neil attended that match as well as the first night of TGL — the new simulator golf series founded by McIlroy and Tiger Woods — earlier this month.
