Do we like them?Do we like Greg Norman?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Real harm in how he brushed off Saudi Arabia's record, but no campaign against any group turned up and we found little real good to set against it.
Greg Norman was Australian golf's big name for a generation, and that is why the fall stung. In 2021 he became the first chief executive of LIV Golf, a breakaway tour appointed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Plenty of Aussie golfers who grew up idolising him did not take it well.
The moment people remember came in May 2022. Asked about Saudi Arabia's human rights record and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Norman told reporters “we've all made mistakes”. Asked about the 81 executions there, he said he doesn't “look back” and avoids the politics of things. Amnesty International and Khashoggi's fiancée both criticised the comments.
In the same run of press he was asked about Saudi Arabia's treatment of LGBTQ people and answered that he wasn't sure he had any gay friends. LPGA great Karrie Webb said “the little girl in me just died”, and 1990 PGA Championship winner Wayne Grady said his admiration for Norman was gone. Not a good look for a bloke selling a league to the world.
On the harm check: we found no campaign against trans people's rights, no conspiracy theories and nothing on climate in the pieces we read. The problem is the company and the cause. He fronted a league funded by a government with that record and, on camera, waved away the questions about it. That is why this is mixed rather than a clean pass.
He confirmed in September 2025 that he had cut ties with LIV and the Saudi fund, after Scott O'Neil took over as chief executive earlier that year. He later said the job was “very draining” and that he would do it again in a heartbeat. That is not regret, and it is not an apology either.
The good stuff is thin in what we could verify. His golf career is a big part of Australian sporting history, but we did not find charity work or acts of kindness we could open and read, so we won't pad it out. That is honestly the whole list.