There’s an old saying that once is an accident, twice is coincidence and three times is a pattern. What if I told you that 18 LIV Golf players who jumped from the PGA Tour this season for boatloads of Saudi cash had competed in the QBE Shootout, A.K.A., the Shark Shootout? That’s more than coincidence.
It appears that Norman, who hosted the unofficial Tour event since 1989, exploited his hosting duties to recruit players to LIV. Developing a chummy relationship with Tour pros at the one event where the Shark regularly got to spend a week in the locker room and form relationships with them turned out to be rewarding. Of the 18 former Shootout competitors who joined LIV, 13 of them played in Naples, Florida within the past two years when the upstart Saudi-backed golf league was taking flight.
A conspiracy theory, you say? Well, that could be but hopefully some of the discovery in the LIV-PGA Tour lawsuit will shed some light on Norman’s recruiting process.
Norman, the CEO and Commissioner of LIV, isn’t participating at the QBE, neither are the LIV players from a Silly Season event that Norman began with the best intentions: Norman, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd teed it up at Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando in 1986 as a fundraiser for what is now the Arnold Palmer Medical Center in Orlando. It grew from there.
Let’s take a look at the 18 players who previously spent at least one fun-filled week at the Ritz-Carlton and played at Tiburon Golf Club but are banned from the unofficial team event after leaving for richer pastures with LIV Golf.