Officials decide future of honour amid golf’s great war
Is it right for Australian golf to continue to name its best player award after Greg Norman? A decision has been made.
Australian golf will ignore golf’s global war and continue to honour Greg Norman via its best player medal but has toned down his imprint on the awards night.
The Greg Norman Medal will be presented at Brisbane’s City Hall on Tuesday for the eighth time with British Open winner Cameron Smith an unbackable favourite to win it for the second time.
Norman will not be attending the awards but is expected to appear via a video presentation.
While deciding to retain the Norman Medal golf officials have tweaked the naming of the night to the PGA Awards featuring the Greg Norman Medal rather than referring it to as Greg Norman Medal night.
This is not necessarily a response to the golf’s great war because cricket took a similar tack when it changed the Allan Border Medal night to the Australian Cricket Awards to incorporate the vast array of awards apart from the Border Medal.
There has been an intense internal debate among senior Australian golf officials over the appropriateness of continuing to name Australian golf’s top award after Norman after he infuriated mainstream tours by organising the Saudi backed LIV tour.
But the feeling was Norman has done so much for the Australian golf scene, from blazing a trail as a player to helping young Australians on their journey in the United States, it would not be appropriate to take his name off the medal.
Had Norman’s name been scrapped it would have caused acute anguish in this of all years because of the likelihood of Smith – who is the LIV troupe’s star signing – receiving a medal which has just had his bosses name taken off it would have been a cringe worthy moment on all fronts, especially as the award will be presented in Queensland, home state of Smith and Norman.
Smith is the star attraction at the Australian PGA tournament at Royal Queensland Golf Club from next Thursday.
Australian golf, trying to get up on its feet after becoming a Covid wasteland over the last couple of years, is straddling a difficult line where it is trying not to offend any of the warring parties – the PGA and the DP World tours or Norman’s LIV golf.
While Australia is aligned to the DP World Tour it is appreciates the fact Norman’s LIV will being a tournament to Adelaide next April.
There is talk the US based PGA tour will send a tournament from their second tier Korn Ferry Tour to Australia but local officials find that move totally underwhelming because it is a low profile tour filled with players Australians do not recognise.
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