GURUGRAM, Feb 3: Australian legend Greg Norman believes India is a sleeping giant in golf and it would require more competitions in the country to help its players realise their true potential as he pitched for making the recently-concluded International Series here an annual affair.
The 69-year-old former world number one, who has 88 professional titles under his belt, was hopeful of India’s growth in the sport.
“One of my initial focus points was to invest into the sleeping giant, which was the Asian tour. India is a sleeping giant when it comes to Golf. I mean you just look what’s happening in India with the game of golf, it has only just started, right?” Norman told select media on the sidelines of the Asian Tour event here on Sunday.
“For the next 25 years, which is a generation, India is right in the middle of them,” he said.
Norman was the CEO of LIV, a breakaway league founded in 2022 and financed by Saudi Arabia.
It has introduced some fresh rules like three-day 54-hole tournaments, instead of the traditional 72-hole four-day events. The LIV tournaments have also done away with the concept of weekend cut and all those who start get to play the entire tournament besides being entitled to prize money.
The International Series is a partnership between the Asian Tour and LIV but it adheres to the traditional 72-hole concept with a cut at the end of two rounds to ensure that players are entitled to points under the world golf ranking system, which has refused to recognise the 54-hole LIV events.
The LIV events have also faced significant resistance from the existing PGA Tour (USA)and the European Tour, which claim that the parallel tour “disrupts” the sport by offering players higher prize money and a seemingly more relaxed rules structure.
Norman believes LIV can have a great role in helping Indian golf, which was on a high when the likes of Jeev Milkha Singh, Shiv Kapur, SSP Chawrasia, Jyoti Randhawa and Arjun Atwal regularly won tournaments on all three tours till about a decade back.
However, the momentum has been somewhat lost in the past five years.
“I love LIV to come to India because to me, it’s significant, right? Everything takes baby steps. And obviously, the international place to enter the league is important to do that,” he pointed out.
“LIV created a new dynamic for the game of golf because it gave an opportunity in the competitive golfing world for a new business model…Different formats have come out and enticed millions and millions of people to come into the game of golf,” he asserted.
“I truly believe LIV will be the true global golf platform for golf. We want to be in all the continents of the world…We bring a product that’s a plug and play that’s never been done before. We bring franchise models. We’re bringing the youth side of it,” he explained.
Lahiri has joined ranks with LIV along with some other prominent names like Bryson DeChambeau, two-time Major winner Dustin Johnson and Lee Westwood, a former world number one.
“He’s not just a great golfer, but he’s a great person. He’s a great spokesperson. He’s a great representative of your country. So, all those ingredients allowed me to go, let’s go do it,” Norman said of the Indian, who has seven Asian and two European titles to his credit.
The Australian great was also full of praise for 15-year-old rising Indian golfer Kartik Singh, who made the cut at the International Series here.
“He’s captured it. He made the cut. I think it’s pretty impressive. I haven’t seen his swing at golf club…I look forward to seeing his swing at golf club.” (PTI)
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