LIV Golf

LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman and his wife, Kirsten, are being sued for negligence after a girl was allegedly sexually assaulted at their home.

According to ESPN's Mark Schlabach, the girl and her parents filed a lawsuit after the girl said Kirsten Norman gave her alcohol at a pool party at their Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, home in September 2021 despite her being a minor.

The girl, who said she was intoxicated, alleged that two people at the party who had also been drinking sexually assaulted her "in a grassy area near the Normans' pool."

At the time, the girl was a classmate of Norman's daughter.

In part, a complaint filed by the girl and her parents read: "Defendants breached their duty of care by not safe-guarding or preventing injury to Jane Doe's health and well-being, including, but not limited to, abusive conduct by other minor invitees resultant in part from the provision of alcoholic beverages to the minor invitees."

The girl said she suffered "bodily injury and resulting pain and suffering, disability, mental anguish, loss of the capacity for the enjoyment of life, expenses for counseling and resulting treatment, loss of earnings, and the loss of the ability to earn money in the future," resulting in the family suing the Normans for more than $50,000 in damages.

Greg Norman, 68, has been a professional golfer since 1976. Of late, he's been prominently involved as the public face of LIV Golf.

Just over a year after LIV Golf held its first tournament, it was announced this month that LIV Golf, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour had agreed to merge with the backing of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which financed LIV Golf.

Norman's name was not mentioned in a subsequent press release among individuals who will have positions of power within the new partnership moving forward, although he remains the LIV Golf CEO for now.

Dustin Johnson told ESPN's Mark Schlabach on Wednesday that LIV Golf League still plans to go through with its schedule for the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024 despite plans to align with the PGA Tour on a new for-profit entity.

"Everything I've heard, they're still working on a full schedule for next year," Johnson said. "The rest of this year and 2024 is going to be the same as far as I know. After that, you know as much as I do."

Johnson said he heard that news from Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV Golf. Al-Rumayyan will be the chairman of the new entity, while current PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan will be its CEO.

PGA Tour policy board member Jimmy Dunne told Schlabach that Monathan will decide if LIV Golf, which has seven more tournaments on its 2023 slate, will remain in existence in its current form beyond this year.

Bryson DeChambeau also confirmed the news that Johnson relayed, saying "that is what was talked about" regarding the continued plans.

PGA Tour policy board member Jimmy Dunne told ESPN last week that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan will oversee the PGA Tour and LIV Golf under the new agreement with PIF. Dunne said it would be Monahan's decision whether LIV Golf exists in its current form beyond this season.

The latest LIV Golf news comes amid professional golf heading to California for the 123rd U.S. Open, which begins Thursday from the Los Angeles Country Club.

While the news of the planned merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf sent shockwaves through the entire sport, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka isn't letting anything distract him from chasing a sixth title.

"I haven't paid too much attention to it, honestly," Koepka said during his press conference at Los Angeles Country Club ahead of this week's U.S. Open, per Golf Digest's Alex Myers. "I've been trying to prep for this week. I'm just trying to make sure I come into a major championship—there's four weeks a year I really care about and this is one of them, and I want to play well."

The 33-year-old believes his ability to quiet the outside noise has helped him be successful in high-pressure situations:

A two-time U.S. Open champion, Koepka is one of the favorites to be victorious once again as he's riding a wave of momentum into this weekend. He finished as runner-up to Jon Rahm at the Masters Tournament in April before winning the PGA Championship last month.

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan wrote in a letter to Congress that his organization's alignment with the LIV Golf League and the Public Investment Fund is "not a merger."

"Let me be clear that despite numerous reports, this arrangement is not a merger between the PGA TOUR, LIV Golf, and the PIF," Monahan wrote.

Politico obtained a copy of a letter Monahan wrote in which the commissioner claimed that inaction from Congress forced the PGA Tour's hand in aligning with its ex-archrival in the Saudi-backed golf league.

"During this intense battle, we met with several Members of Congress and policy experts to discuss the PIF's attempt to take over the game of golf in the United States, and suggested ways that Congress could support us in these efforts," Monahan wrote.

"While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain members, we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States' complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This left the very real prospect of another decade of expensive and distracting litigation and the PGA TOUR's long-term existence under threat."

The PGA Tour's announcement revealing the agreement did not use the term "merger," instead stating it formed "a landmark agreement to unify the game of golf, on a global basis."

The reported plan is to align "PIF's golf-related commercial businesses and rights (including LIV Golf) with the commercial businesses and rights of the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour into a new, collectively owned, for-profit entity."

Monahan wrote that he will be the CEO of that entity, while PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan will be chairman. He also stated that the PGA Tour will hold the majority of seats on the board and maintain control of the entity, going so far as to call the PIF a minority investor.

The PGA Tour-LIV Golf League alignment has caught the attention of Congress, to the point where Homeland Security investigative subcommittee chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal has demanded a release of records in a letter to Monahan.

"While few details about the agreement are known, PIF's role as an arm of the Saudi government and PGA Tour's sudden and drastic reversal of position concerning LIV Golf raise serious questions regarding the reasons for and terms behind the announced agreement," Blumenthal wrote, per Politico.

Blumenthal also wrote a letter to LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman on the matter. They have until June 26 to release those documents to the subcommittee. Requests include record of the agreement and plans for the new group, per ESPN's Mark Schlabach.

It also includes any communication Monahan had "concerning risks to PGA Tour posed by LIV Golf, ownership of LIV Golf, and Saudi Arabia's influence on LIV Golf," among other requests.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal announced Monday that he is investigating the merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

Blumenthal is a Connecticut Democrat who serves as the Senate's chairman on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Blumenthal specifically requested "documents and information" related to the agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, noting that the PGA Tour's agreement "raises concerns about the Saudi government's role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution."

LIV Golf is funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which is run by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The PIF also owns Premier League club Newcastle United and controls a 75 percent stake in four Saudi Pro League clubs: Al-Nassr, Al-Ahli, Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal.

The PIF has been accused of being a sportswashing endeavor, i.e., an attempt by the Saudi government to purchase sporting organizations or create leagues like LIV Golf in an effort to distract from its human-rights violations.

Kevin Draper and Alan Blinder of the New York Times reported that LIV "executives had signaled ... that they expected their agreement to attract sustained attention from the federal government."

Whether or not Blumenthal's investigation leads to legislation attempting to block the deal remains to be seen. He wasn't the only Senate Democrat to openly question golf's shocking merger.

"Yes," Sen. Dick Durbin told reporters last week when questioned about whether regulators needed to further explore the PGA-LIV agreement. "And the question obviously is whether or not there is any current laws involving foreign relations or foreign business dealings that haven't been complied with."

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, however, said the U.S. government should stay out of sports, while former Republican President Donald Trump called the merger "GREAT NEWS" on Truth Social and added that it was a "BIG, BEAUTIFUL, AND GLAMOROUS DEAL FOR THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF GOLF. CONGRATS TO ALL!!!"

The world of golf already had the attention of the United States federal government. According to Draper and Blinder, the Justice Department's antitrust investigators "have spent months asking questions about the tour's efforts to deter player defections to LIV and examining whether the tour's top leaders were too close to other prominent golf organizations, like Augusta National Golf Club, the organizer of the Masters Tournament."

This merger is likely to only further pique their interest.

Cool Brands Supply, an Argentine apparel company, filed a lawsuit against LIV Golf and Phil Mickelson's HyFlyers GC claiming copyright infringement over the use of the team's logo.

The lawsuit highlights the similarities between the HyFlyers logo and the one used by Cool Brands Supply, which has been in business since 2003, and says LIV Golf has ignored previous attempts at contact.

"The similarities between the two marks, particularly when used on clothing, are striking, and are confusing consumers and causing damage to Plaintiff's senior mark and brand," Cool Brands Supply's attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, per Mark Schlabach of ESPN. "Plaintiff previously demanded that Defendants cease use of their infringing logo, and they refused."

The logo in question debuted in February as part of a rebrand for the HyFlyers. Mickelson wore the logo on his hat and apparel at the Masters Tournament and PGA Tour.

The HyFlyers include James Piot, Brendan Steele and Cameron Tringale in addition to Mickelson.

The lawsuit comes just a week after LIV Golf and the PGA Tour announced a merger that shook the golf world. LIV and the Tour had been engaged in a public war of words over golf supremacy and were battling in the courtroom as well, making the announcement of a merger a total shock—even to the sport's most high-profile players.

While a copyright lawsuit is not the type of massive-scale issue that would hurt the chances of the merger moving forward, the timing of the litigation is at least noteworthy.

LIV Golf's 2023 schedule resumes in July.

The PGA Tour was at a distinct financial disadvantage with LIV Golf prior to the surprise merger between the two competing entities earlier this week.

Per Andrew Beaton and Louise Radnofsky of the Wall Street Journal, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan delivered a message to employees explaining why the Tour couldn't get involved in a "spending war" with Saudi Arabia's government.

Monahan specifically told the workers it "cannot compete with a foreign government with unlimited money" in a meeting at PGA Tour headquarters in a meeting with employees on Thursday

Beaton and Radnofsky noted Monahan also explained the Tour had already spent $50 million in its legal battle with LIV, which wasn't anywhere close to being resolved, and pulled funds from the $100 million in reserves to pay for its schedule.

In the wake of several marquee players making the jump to LIV Golf, Monahan announced in August 2022 the PGA Tour was overhauling its schedule and prize compensation as part of an agreement with players after top stars committed to playing against each other more frequently.

There were competing lawsuits between the two golf leagues. Eleven LIV golfers filed an antitrust lawsuit after the PGA Tour banned them from competing in PGA-sanctioned events.

ESPN's Mark Schlabach noted in April eight of the 11 players involved in the antitrust lawsuit asked a judge to be removed from the case.

The PGA Tour filed a countersuit against LIV Golf in September, claiming the new league executed a plan to pay its players "astronomical sums of money to induce them to breach their contracts with the Tour in an effort to use the LIV Players and the game of golf to sportswash the recent history of Saudi atrocities and to further the Saudi Public Investment Fund's Vision 2030 initiatives."

Schlabach noted a federal judge vacated the scheduled trial date for LIV's antitrust lawsuit and "indicated it might not start until May 2024 at the earliest" with both LIV and the PGA Tour trying to work through "discovery disputes involving Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and the fund's governor."

In a press release issued on Tuesday, the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf reached agreement to merge into a single entity and end all pending litigation.

LIV Golf was founded in 2021 by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. The project was presented as being part of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 intended to diversify the country's economic portfolio and be less dependent on oil, but it's also been accused of sportswashing by distracting from its history of human rights violations.

Per Matthew Martin of Bloomberg, the Public Investment Fund is currently worth $600 billion with the goal of accruing "$2 trillion in assets by 2030."

PGA Tour players who stayed aboard after LIV Golf's formation will receive "a piece of equity" in the new for-profit organization in the works as the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund now join forces.

PGA Tour policy board member Jimmy Dunne spoke with ESPN's Mark Schlabach on the matter.

"The new [company] would grow, and the [current PGA Tour] players would get a piece of equity that would enhance and increase in value as time went on," Dunne said.

"There would have to be some kind of formulaic decision on how to do that. It would be a process to determine what would be a fair mechanism that would be really beneficial to our players."

As Schlabach noted, numerous PGA Tour stars turned down "as much as $100 million" in guaranteed money from LIV Golf League, including Jon Rahm and Hideki Matsuyama.

Ex-PGA Tour players who left for LIV, such as Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka, are not eligible to get equity in the new organization. They will also have to go through a process to get reinstated after PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan suspended players who didn't voluntarily resign from the tour.

"Players on the LIV [tour] that wanted to reinstate into the PGA Tour would go through a process [and] suspension," Dunne told Schlabach. "Whatever the penalty was, they'd have to decide whether they wanted to do that or not and then they could play."

Dunne is the vice chair and senior managing principal of Piper Sandler, an investment bank. As Schlabach noted, he played an instrumental role in brokering the deal between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV Golf.

The proposed merger ends all litigation between the previously warring sides, per Schlabach.

There's still much more work to be done, however. Of note, Schlabach wrote that U.S. Department of Justice antitrust regulators are expected to scrutinize the merger.