Greg Norman’s future with LIV Golf has been unclear since the shocking merger between the Saudi-funded golf league and the PGA Tour — but he’s got at least one player in his corner. 

Norman received some backing from fellow Aussie Cameron Smith ahead of The Open Championship beginning later this week.

Smith, who enters this year’s tournament as the defending champ after winning in 2022, was one of LIV’s biggest pickups last year when he joined the golf league a month after winning The Open. 

“I’ve kind of become a bit of a friend of Greg’s, I guess, the last eight or nine months,” Smith told reporters, according to Yahoo Sports. “Personally, I think he’s doing a great job for our tour. He’s looking out for our best interests. That’s all you can ask of a guy that’s running the show.

“Yeah, I’d love to see him keep on.”

Norman had been one of the driving forces early on in LIV Golf’s existence, but the league’s CEO has been the subject of speculation as more and more details of the merger have come out and his job security has dwindled.

He was not mentioned when the PGA Tour and LIV made the initial announcement on June 6 and he was not among the names who were part of the new unified board. 

Norman’s name was also conspicuously absent from documents detailing the merger that were made public as part of a US Senate committee investigation looking into the deal and the Saudi Government’s ties to LIV Golf. 

And during a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this month, PGA Tour COO Ron Price essentially confirmed that Norman would be gone if the merger goes through. 

“The LIV Golf assets, for which Greg Norman’s currently the commissioner, will move into a new subsidiary — PGA Tour subsidiary — controlled by the PGA Tour, and those events will be managed by the PGA Tour,” Price told senators during the hearing. 

Later adding: “It would make no sense to bring in that type of executive to manage what is now a 14-series of events.” 

While bits and pieces about what the golf world will look like after the merger that brings the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the European Tour under one roof will look like, Smith had a positive outlook about where the sport stands. 

“Yeah, absolutely I’m optimistic. I think golf is in a great spot,” Smith said. “There’s obviously a lot of things that are up in the air that no one really knows at the moment. I don’t even think the guys that are trying to sort it out really know what this outcome is going to be like.

“A lot of uncertainty, but I’m optimistic LIV will be around in the future.”