Masters Chairman Says Greg Norman Not Invited This Year But Tone 'Good' Around LIV Golf Fracture
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Past major champions including those who win the U.S. Amateur are typically invited to the Masters Tournament each year as honoree invitees.
Greg Norman did not get such an invite for the 2023 tournament that begins Thursday at Augusta National.
The LIV Golf CEO and commissioner won the British Open in 1986 and 1993 but was not afforded the honoree invite status mostly because chairman Fred Ridley said he wanted to keep this week to the golf on the course as much as possible.
“We did not extend an invitation to Mr. Norman," Ridley said during his annual Wednesday news conference. “The primary issue and the driver there is that I want the focus this week to be on the Masters competition, on the great players that are participating, the greatest players in the world, which, by our decision in December, we ensured that we were going to honor and be consistent with our invitation criteria.
“I would also add that, in the last 10 years, Greg Norman has only been here twice, and I believe one of those was as a commentator for Sirius Radio. It really was to keep the focus on the competition."
In a news conference that lasted 30 minutes, Ridley indirectly spoke about the LIV Golf fracture and how he hoped this week could be used as a way forward.
“I've noticed a tone—the tone has been really good here this week," Ridley said. “I've noticed the players are interacting. Last night at the Champions Dinner, I would not have known that anything was going on in the world of professional golf other than the norm. So I think, and I'm hopeful, that this week might get people thinking in a little bit different direction and things will change."
There are 18 LIV golfers in the field that starts play Thursday, including six past Masters champions.
There had been some speculation that Ridley would announce qualification criteria for future Masters that might impact the ability of LIV players to make it into the field. But aside from some minor wording and the permanent addition of the NCAA individual champion, those invitation criteria will remain the same for at least 2024.
Asked about the Official World Ranking—of which Augusta National has a representative on the seven-member board of directors—Ridley said it would still be used, once at the end of the year and also the week prior to the Masters for the top 50 in the world.
There had been concern that the OWGR has been watered down due to LIV players presently not earning world ranking points while competing in LIV events.
The field consists mostly of players whose accomplishments came on the PGA Tour: top 30 in FedEx Cup points at the end of the year; PGA Tour victories; top 50 in the world. Ridley was asked if the Masters had considered adding players via other tours, something that won’t happen next year.
“We actually have discussed that, and that may well be something we do in the future," Ridley said. “We really want to make sure that the Masters Tournament field is representative of the best players in the world, so we are constantly looking at those possibilities.
“Our conclusion for the time being is that the Official World Golf Rankings, it's a really good way to invite players. It's an objective criteria based on data-driven analytics, and it's consistently applied. I think most would agree it's a good system."
Ridley also addressed a question about LIV golfers and leaving the PGA Tour for the new league which has played 11 tournaments to date, three this year. LIV is funded by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The Kingdom has often been accused of investing in these ventures to distract from its poor human rights record, among other things, often referred to as sport washing.
“Our statement in December, and particularly the comment that these actions had diminished the virtues of the game, I want to make a couple points. The first is I know many of these players who are no longer on the PGA Tour," Ridley said. “Some of them I would consider friends. So anything I might say is not a comment, a personal comment, against their character or anything else.
“What I was trying to point out ... the platform that these players have built their careers on were based on the blood, sweat and tears of their predecessors, people like Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods.
“I had the privilege of being a member, a partner in a law firm that's 180 years old, and we exist today because of many generations of lawyers who thought it was important to leave our organization better than they found it. So this is just my personal opinion. Doesn't mean that everyone has to think this way.
“I was expressing some disappointment that these players were taking the platform that had been given to them—that they rightly had earned success on, by the way—and moving to another opportunity, perhaps not thinking about who might come behind them.
“As it relates to (the) comment about sportswashing, I certainly have a general understanding of the term. I think it’s for others to decide exactly what that means. There were personal decisions of these players, which I, had a high level, don’t necessarily agree with. But it really wasn’t intended to go beyond that."