Do large crowds in Australia mean LIV Golf is saved?

The Guardian points out that Norman's influence on his home country plays a role in the large crowds at The Grand Golf Club last weekend.  While the Shark's playing days are long behind him, he is still a huge hit -- even though his golf league is funded by a country with a horrific human rights record. 

"Australians, it appears, have bought in, unconcerned that the funding of this great golfing fever dream comes from a country that in March of 2022 executed 81 people in a single day," Matt Cleary wrote. 

But when you take away Norman's home crowd over the weekend, LIV Golf isn't exactly out of the woods. The TV ratings haven't been released yet, which will say more about whether fans are coming around to Norman's golf league. Sure, Norman spouted off last week that golfers on his circuit were responsible for ratings at the Masters being so much higher. But that argument doesn't hold much water if the ratings for his own league don't go up after the fact.

One weekend of good crowds also doesn't take away some of the issues LIV Golf still faces. LIV Golf players still don't qualify for world ranking points, and Norman's brazen attitude toward the application process has made things prickly. Then, there is the large expansion LIV Golf is planning to make for the upcoming season, which will be very hard to put into play if they aren't getting the regular viewership Norman was so convinced they would. Even LIV Golf's beef with the PGA Tour hasn't completely gone away, and who knows how long that could go on for.

So to answer the question of whether LIV Golf has turned the corner: It's difficult to say right this second. But if that one large crowd in Australia was a stand-alone occurrence, Norman and company still have work to do to be viewed as a legitimate league.