Lynch: New LIV boss Scott O'Neil sounds a lot like Greg Norman. That's not a compliment

USA Today

4 days ago

Like most visitors to the Open at Royal Portrush, Scott O'Neil will probably pick up a few choice phrases particular to Northern Ireland. He may already be familiar with some given that his employees as CEO of LIV include several players and caddies from these parts, though it's doubtful they've told him to 'wind your neck in.'
Translation: give it a rest, zip it, just hush.
Like his predecessor, Greg Norman, O'Neil sounds like a man energetically trying to manufacture for his organization a reality that doesn't exist and suggest a momentum it doesn't enjoy. On a recent podcast hosted by one of his paid supplicants, O'Neil said that LIV will be the dominant global force in golf. 'I think the PGA Tour will always have the stronghold in the US … and I think we'll be the dominant player in the world.'
His assertion went both unchallenged and unexplained. If there's a single metric that points toward such a rosy future, evidence of it was neither offered nor requested. About the only yardstick O'Neil did cite was marital harmony. 'We had a lot of wives — I'd say, no fewer than a dozen — come up independently, unsolicited, and say, 'My husband's never been happier. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.' That's nice.'
Pay and perks do make guys happy about having dropped anchor, as it were.
O'Neil went on to mention that he's friends with Brian Rolapp, the newly appointed CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises and Jay Monahan's de facto successor. He said Rolapp would likely be unable to accept his invitation to attend a LIV event because it would become too much of a circus — understandable since LIV tournaments are known for a sober focus on competition — but he expected they'd catch up at the Open, which Rolapp isn't actually attending.
By the time O'Neil added that he and his opposite number 'go to the same church' (as in Latter-day Saints, not as in the same structure), the sweaty desperation for relevance was all too apparent. Which is wholly on brand for LIV these days.
Take the circuit's decision last week to resubmit an application to be recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking. When LIV's first bid was rejected in October 2023, the OWGR made clear that field size, the lack of a cut and playing only 54 holes weren't barriers. It was the absence of meritocracy — limited pathways and players being exempt from relegation, no matter how execrable their performances — and the staging of team and individual events simultaneously.
'LIV Golf is committed to working together with the Official World Golf Ranking and its board to ensure the very best players are competing in the game's most prestigious events,' O'Neil said in a statement. 'We are confident our application addresses the outstanding questions that exist to support a more global, all-encompassing, and accurate ranking system. We are hopeful the review and approval process can progress ahead of the 2026 major season.'
Nothing about specific material changes by LIV to address non-compliance, more a haughty call for the rules to be rewritten and quickly.
An absence of particulars is typical of LIV announcements that are intended to simulate success that doesn't exist by any commercial measurement. Like last week's deal with HSBC, a company with significant interests in Saudi Arabia. HSBC will become LIV's official banking partner — just totting up the league's losses should guarantee employment for many — but there was no detail on the deal's duration (other than 'multi-year') or a suggestion that money was changing hands. HSBC will be a 'presenting partner' of a segment in LIV broadcasts which, the press release noted, 'has a potential reach of over 875 million households across more than 120 international markets.'
The 'potential' in that claim is working harder than Donald Trump's haircare product.
O'Neil declined to be drawn on LIV's player contracts, some of which expire later this year, notably Dustin Johnson's. His obvious lack of motivation notwithstanding, expect Johnson to be re-signed with much fanfare. It will be yet another purely performative exercise, a sleight of hand designed to create a narrative that LIV is doubling down when it's really just trying to buy time in hopes that Rolapp and the PGA Tour's board decide to compromise their product by incorporating LIV's as part of a deal they don't need. Anything to imply a lengthy runway ahead for LIV that isn't supported by economic tailwinds.
As the locals might say in Portrush, catch yourself on, Scott.