LIV Golf Announces 2023 Schedule, Greg Norman to Take Elevated Role on Executive Team

The second season of the Saudi-backed circuit includes 14 events from February through November. Also, despite a tumultuous year, Greg Norman’s role is growing in the LIV organization.

Amid suggestions that he should be removed from his position, Greg Norman’s role as CEO and commissioner of the LIV Golf League is actually being strengthened, meaning more autonomy in running the second-year circuit that announced its 2023 schedule and will begin play next month.

Sports Illustrated has learned that Majed Al-Sorour, the managing director of LIV Golf, will leave that role but continue as one of seven members of the LIV Golf board of directors. Al-Sorour is also CEO of the Saudi Golf Federation.

Al-Sorour’s role with LIV Golf is not being filled, meaning more power for Norman, 67, the two-time major-championship winner who is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and whose leadership has been questioned by PGA Tour stars Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

The change for Norman and Al-Sorour was confirmed to SI by a LIV Golf official, and the league released a statement Monday:

"Majed Al-Sorour has been and will continue to be an invaluable part of LIV Golf, as he continues in his Board of Directors capacity. Majed's role was pivotal in supporting the launch of LIV Golf. As the business transitions into its first full season with a new broadcast partnership in place, the time is right for the Managing Director role to transition and for Majed to focus efforts and attention on other interests. We are grateful for Majed's hard work, contributions and getting LIV to this new stage."

LIV Golf is also announcing its schedule, which will see a couple of alterations from previously released versions of the 14-tournament slate. As announced previously, the league will begin with its first tournament Feb. 24 at the Mayakoba Golf Resort in Mexico.

Related: See LIV Golf’s Full 2023 Schedule Here

The late additions to the schedule are a season-ending team event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the Boston event—where Dustin Johnson won in a playoff—being scrapped. There will also be a tournament the week prior to the Masters at Orange County National outside of Orlando.

What was supposed to be the season-ending team event at Doral in September will now move to October as a regular event, with the team championship to be played at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club in Saudi Arabia in early November.

With the schedule now released, the announcement last week of TV deal with the CW Network, and the pending revelation of the 48-player field and 12-team lineups for 2023, Al-Sorour’s day-to-day duties were no longer necessary. He is already busy with other Saudi sports endeavors, such as the Newcastle United football club, WWE and his role with the country’s golf federation.

LIV Golf has already undergone a bit of a restructuring after Atul Khosla, the chief operating officer, left LIV Golf in December. He was replaced by a trio of executives at Performance 54, a U.K.-based agency that has been with LIV Golf since it formed n 2021.

All report to Norman, whose direct contact now will be Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund. The PIF is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, said to be worth some $620 billion, and the funding source for LIV Golf.

Greg Norman and LIV Golf have finalized their 14-event schedule for 2023.  / USA Today

If Woods and McIlroy had their way, Norman would have been removed. In recent months, both players said they could see the possibility of collaboration between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf if Norman were no longer part of the leadership.

“I think Greg needs to go,” said McIlroy, who also noted the litigation between the two parties would also need to end. “I think he just needs to exit stage left. He’s made his mark, but I think now is the right time to sort of say, look, you’ve got this thing off the ground, but no one is going to talk unless there’s an adult in the room that can actually try to mend fences.”

Woods, who along with McIlroy helped the PGA Tour come up with a plan that will see the top players better compensated this year through designated events with high purses, said similar things about Norman at the Hero World Challenge.

“I think Greg has to go, first of all, and then obviously litigation against us and then our countersuit against them, those would then have to be at a stay as well. So then we can talk, we can talk freely.”

Norman responded over the weekend on a Fox News segment in which he said Woods does not know all the facts “because obviously I’m still here” and that “he might be a bit of a mouthpiece for the PGA Tour to try and get us to create, to try and get turmoil created internally within LIV.”

Perhaps there was some turmoil as it related to the LIV Golf schedule, which at one point was supposed to be released in late November. Playing an event again in Saudi Arabia was not part of the original plan, nor was extending the season into November.

LIV had previously announced the Mayakoba event, along with one in Tucson, Arizona, in March and tournaments in Australia, Singapore, Spain, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

On Monday it announced a tournament the weekend prior to the Masters (March 31–April 2) at Orange County National outside of Orlando, as well as others in New Jersey, Washington, D.C., London, Chicago, Miami and Jeddah.

Norman was named CEO and commissioner of LIV Golf in November 2021. The winner of the 1986 and '93 British Opens, Norman won 20 times on the PGA Tour and more than 60 other worldwide titles.

But he long had a contentious relationship with the PGA Tour over his ability to play where he wanted around the world without having to get permission in the former of a release. That is ultimately at the crux of the battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

2023 LIV Golf Schedule 

Feb. 24–26: El Camaleon Golf Club, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

March 17–19: The Gallery Golf Club, Tucson, Ariz.

March 31–April 2: Orange County National (Crooked Cat), Orlando

April 21–23: The Grange Golf Club, Adelaide, Australia

April 28–30: Sentosa Golf Club (Serapong Course), Singapore

May 12–14: Cedar Ridge Country Club, Broken Arrow, Okla.

May 26–28: Trump National Golf Club, Washington, D.C.

June 30–July 2: Real Club Valderrama, Sotogrande, Spain

July 7–9: Centurion Club, London

Aug. 4–6: The Old White Course, White Sulphur Springs, W.Va

Aug. 11–13: Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, N.J.

Sept. 22–24: Rich Harvest Farms, Sugar Grove, Ill.

Oct. 20–22: Trump National Doral, Miami

Nov. 3-5: Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia