Greg Norman insists Saudi-backed Asian Tour not seeking ‘fight’ with rival tours

Greg Norman insists the Asian Tour is not seeking a fight with rival tours, despite announcing plans to stage a tournament in England for the first time  as “just the beginning”.

As part of a 10-event International Series, the Centurion Club in Hertfordshire will host a £1.5million event from June 9-12, the week before the US Open and clashing with the DP World Tour’s Scandinavian Mixed event.

Tournaments previously staged at Centurion Club include the Aramco Team Series event on the Ladies European Tour and two editions of Golf Sixes on the European Tour, now rebranded as the DP World Tour.

A spokesman for the DP World Tour declined to comment on the latest development in golf’s global power struggle when contacted by the PA news agency.

Norman is the chief executive of LIV Golf Investments (LGI), a company backed by the Private Investment Fund which operates on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia and which is investing 300 million US dollars into the Asian Tour.

“We are setting the Asian Tour up as a powerful new force on the world golf stage,” the former world number one said.

“Just because The International Series is associated with the Asian Tour, we want to get the message out there that it’s specifically for the Asian region. That is critically important for everyone to understand.

“Healthy competition and respectful competition should spread golf globally. That’s why it’s so encouraging we can go to London, it’ll be so encouraging when we go to the United States.

“This is just the beginning, just the infancy of this journey.”

Norman made the announcement at a press conference in Jeddah ahead of the Saudi International, a tournament which was previously on the European Tour but is now the flagship event on