Greg Norman insists the Asian Tour is not trying to fight with golf’s rival tours and believes the new International Series is “just the beginning” in their quest to grow the sport globally.
The former world No 1 is the chief executive of the Saudi government-funded LIV Golf Investments (LGI), who announced a new 10-event series as part of their $300million commitment to the Asian Tour over the next decade.
Norman revealed details of the new series ahead of the Saudi International, a tournament previously on the European Tour but is now the flagship event on the Asian Tour, where players are taking advantage of large appearance fees to tee it up at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club.
PGA Tour members had to gain releases to be granted to play in the event this week ahead of their own AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, although Norman hopes to see golf's major tours working closer together in future.
"We're not in this for a fight, there's no question," Norman said. "We're in this for the good of the game.
"It's personally disappointing to see some of the attacks that have been taking place unwarrantedly. If you prejudge anybody without knowing the facts then shame on you.
"Are you scared of something? What is LIV Golf Investments doing that you're scared of? Understand the fact that we have always and continue to be collaborative and cooperative with any of the institutions across the board.
"We want to work together side by side. It's all about the game and I cannot enforce this enough. It's for the betterment of the game, not administrations or anything else. I would encourage them to sit back and say maybe it's a good time to sit down and understand if we can work side by side."
Where will the International Series take place?
One of the new tournaments will be held at The Centurion Club in Hertfordshire from June 9-12, the first Asian Tour event in England, with the event taking place the week before the US Open and clashing with the DP World Tour's Scandinavian Mixed event.
The series will start in Thailand from March 3-6 with the England-based event then followed by tournaments in Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Middle East, China, Singapore and Hong Kong as part of an expanded Asian Tour schedule.
"The International Series is not going to be geofenced," Norman said. "Just because the International Series is associated with the Asian Tour, we want to get the message out there that it's just not specifically for the Asian region, and that's critically important for everybody to understand.
"Healthy competition and respectful competition should be spread globally. That's why we're not going to geofence this. That's why it's so encouraging that we can go to London. It'll be so encouraging when we go to the United States. It'll be so encouraging. Remember what I said, this is just the beginning.
"In the beginning, we have to get off with baby steps, understand where we need to go and how we're going to need to do it. This is just the infancy of this journey, and it's really going to be an exciting journey."