Hard travel for Norris and the temptation of Saudi series

TULSA, OKLA. » Shaun Norris, the last player to be paired with Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship, headed home to South Africa to see his young children, take a short break from traveling and figure out where his world travels should take him.

One option is the Saudifunded LIV Golf Invitational series, which has his attention.

Norris, who is No. 66 in the world with 10 career victories, said he has signed up for the inaugural event in two weeks outside London.

Still to be determined is whether he goes, or even if he’s in the field. Norris, much like everyone else, isn’t sure and hasn’t heard anything.

“I’ve entered,” he said. “I’m just waiting to see what will happen. I’m not fully convinced or decided on going yet. I’m just hanging back and basically testing the waters.”

The money and the small schedule are appealing to the 40-year-old.

Norris has victories on the Sunshine Tour, Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour and the European tour in his career. This year alone, he has played tournaments on four of the six main golf circuits, earning his European tour card by winning a co-sanctioned event in South Africa.

He has options. He also has two children, a 3-yearold boy and a daughter born two months ago in Pretoria.

“I saw her for a week and then I had to leave,” Norris said. “She’s smiling. We do video calling every day. But it’s tough.”

That’s a big reason why he is curious about LIV Golf.

“If it does work out for me, at my age, you start to want to look after your family and stay at home,” Norris said. “All this hard traveling playing Europe, the U.S., Japan, I barely get to see my kids. We’re trying to figure out a way to make it easier. If it comes down to have to do that, you never know. ”

He returns next week for the U.S. Open, exempt by winning the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit. The first LIV Golf event is June 9-11 at Centurion Golf Club, a week before the U.S. Open outside Boston. The next one is scheduled for Oregon on July 1-3, a week before he is to play the Scottish Open and the British Open.

“If you can work out 15 or 20 weeks of the year and the rest of the time is spent at home? That’s an ideal lifestyle, especially as the father of two,” he said.

Except for 2020, when the schedule was disrupted by the pandemic, Norris has averaged 27 tournaments a year, with a high of 34.

So what’s holding him back from signing up for a series of $20 million events with $4 million for the winner?

“I just want to see how the tours are going to handle it,” he said. “Are they going to completely ban you from the tours? Fine you? I don’t want to get myself in a complete mess where I can’t get out of it. We know there are a bunch of players fully committed. Let’s see what happens.”