Report: Saudi Arabia, Greg Norman to Announce New Pro Golf League

Greg Norman, who led a similar breakaway effort in the 1990s, would be the commissioner of a new league that has reportedly made multi-million dollar offers to high-profile players Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.

A new professional golf league backed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with Greg Norman as commissioner will be announced next week, according to a Golfweek report.

A representative for Greg Norman declined to comment.

Here's what we know so far, according to reporting from SI.com and Golfweek:

• The new tour was detailed in a private session with "golf media members" Oct. 27 in New York. No organizer or attendee has confirmed, officially, who was there. Golfweek said it was not invited. 
• The information given to those media members was embargoed; they agreed to not report on it until next week. 
• Greg Norman will be announced as the commissioner of the league. Norman proposed a breakaway World Golf Tour in the 1990s that drew the ire of the PGA Tour and led to the World Golf Championships.
• In May, Morning Read's Alex Miceli reported that the Saudi backers were willing to spend a billion dollars to bankroll the league and that Phil Mickelson was offered $100 million to join the new tour. Other high-profile players, including Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler, were offered $30 million to $50 million each to defect. How this new proposal affects those financial numbers is unknown. 
• The Guardian's Ewan Murray reports that the Saudi group may partner with the Asian tour and that one American Ryder Cup player was offered $150 million for a three-year stint.
• PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan told players in May they will face suspension and likely expulsion if they join a competing tour.

It's unknown if the tour would be a handful of events, a week-to-week circuit that competes directly with the PGA Tour and European Tour, or some other format. The PGA Tour and European Tour announced a partnership in 2020 that was seen as an attempt to head off potential competitors.