Englishman releases messages to prove that he did approach Norman before criticising the Australian’s role in LIV Golf
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Ben has been the Telegraph’s Sports Investigations Reporter since 2018. He was previously Sport News Correspondent. Before joining the Telegraph in 2013, Ben spent more than eight years at the Press Association, including as a football and rugby reporter. He can be contacted at ben.rumsby@telegraph.co.uk or @ben_rumsby.
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Ben has been the Telegraph’s Sports Investigations Reporter since 2018. He was previously Sport News Correspondent. Before joining the Telegraph in 2013, Ben spent more than eight years at the Press Association, including as a football and rugby reporter. He can be contacted at ben.rumsby@telegraph.co.uk or @ben_rumsby.
A feud between Greg Norman and Sir Nick Faldo has escalated following the release of text and video messages between the pair.
Norman took aim at Faldo last week in an interview with Telegraph Sport, where he complained about the Englishman’s criticism of him for helping establish the controversial Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
In the interview, Norman said: “Nick said some things about me during my time at LIV, some really nasty things. I don’t have any respect for someone who gives their opinion on something in that sort of manner when they don’t know both sides.
“Come on, we have a history, he could have called me and asked for the other side of the story, and I’d have gladly given it. And if he still hadn’t agreed then fine – his opinion and as he knows the facts, he would have been entitled to say anything he likes. Happy days.
“But just to sound off? Like I said, no respect for him. He still comes out with stuff that’s interestingly stupid, to be honest with you.”
Faldo said he would respond to those comments after this year’s Masters and has now done so via his management company.
In a statement released by Faldo Enterprises, the six-time major champion shared screenshots of a text exchanges between him and Norman.
One exchange from 2022 shows Norman declining an invitation to join Faldo on his YouTube channel, where he had been invited to speak about LIV Golf.
Faldo’s new statement also contained links to those WhatsApp video messages in which he explained that the proposed show “was not all about LIV”, that he wanted to interview “fellow champions” and that there was nothing wrong with the two being “chalk and cheese”.
He continued: “We’ve had our battles through the years, so I think that would be interesting to talk about. And with LIV, of course we will have a difference in opinion, and we won’t see eye-to-eye, but it’s just our opinions.
“It’s not to corner you in any way, I’ll be fascinated by how you got to that and where we are now, and what you think is the way forward for global golf. That’s the tone of the whole thing.”
Faldo explained that the interview would take place in December 2022, in Florida. Speaking in a second video, he added: “We [he and Norman] will control the narrative of this.
“We were inside the ropes. There is no journalist that had the right sense of what we do, feel, think, or that fully understands what our life was like.
“If we do this, the world of golf will listen to what you have to say.”
It is unclear whether Norman responded to the videos.
The published texts also included one from December 2020 in which Faldo wished Norman well after the Australian was hospitalised with Covid-19.
The statement concluded: “Given the passage of time and the changes that have since taken place within the game of golf, Sir Nick does not consider that discussion [with Norman] a relevant one to reopen.”
Greg Norman interview
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