When Henrik Stenson captured the Claret Jug at Royal Troon in 2016, a total of 173,000 spectators looked on.
When the storied event returns to the Scottish coast this year, a whopping 250,000 will file through the gates, the R&A announced earlier this week, adding that all the tickets had been scooped up.
With the event now sold out, the combative LIV Golf chief executive, Greg Norman, may have to sneak in from the beach.
In the tense, uneasy truce that men’s professional golf finds itself in, Norman grabbed a chunk of the limelight at the Masters after apparently buying a ticket on the secondary market.
The 69-year-old Australian, who won two Claret Jugs and lost in a playoff at Troon in 1989, was not invited by The R&A to compete in the Celebration of Champions or attend the Champions’ Dinner at St. Andrews in 2022 after the LIV rebellion had swung into action just a few weeks earlier.
“I don’t think there’s a ‘G Norman’ (on the list) and I think someone would have let me know if there was,” chuckled The R&A’s director of corporate communications, Mike Woodcock, when asked if the Great White Shark’s name had been plucked out of that ticket tombola.
Greg Norman walks behind the No. 2 hole during the first round of the Masters Tournament. (Photo: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Network)
“Obviously, there are tickets still available on the resale platform or hospitality. He’s very welcome to look there.”
At the second round of the 88th Masters, Norman wore a white golf shirt with the LIV logo, black slacks, his signature straw hat, or as one patron put it, “the Crocodile Dundee deal,” and golf shoes with Softspikes. All that was missing was a glove, a yardage book, and, of course, an invitation as a past champion, something he never managed to achieve despite several near misses.
Instead, the CEO of LIV Golf was out walking in the gallery of Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open champion, or as another patron described him, “the captain of the Crushers,” and lending his support. He was joined by two younger women and a heavyset man in all black, who may have been providing security.
For those in the gallery, it was like seeing a ghost. Norman, 69, who first played in the Masters in 1981 and last attempted to win a Green Jacket in 2009, showed up with a ticket he bought on the open market, according to his son, Greg Jr., in a social media post. Norman said he was there to support the 13 golfers he’d paid handsomely to defect to the upstart LIV Golf backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak contributed reporting to this post.