Norman furious over letter from Schofield

GREG NORMAN is said to be threatening legal action against the European Tour in another battle over appearance money.

The world number one has accused the Tour's executive director, Ken Schofield, of discriminating against him by writing to the sponsors of the three European tournaments he was paid to play in last season.

Other players in those events were paid, but I seem to have been singled out," Norman is quoted as saying in an article in the London Evening Standard

"I suggested to Ken several weeks ago that it seemed like discrimination to me and that it might be restraint of trade.

"It does seem that I'm always the target. I don't know why I don't go around with a dartboard on my back."

Norman is due to meet Schofield during this week's Heineken Classic in Perth, an event co-sanctioned by the Australian and European Tours.

"I don't think you can tell sponsors how to spend their money," he added. I have not taken this matter any further and have not had a British lawyer look at the case. But I can tell you that Schofield disagreed that he was discriminating against me.

There was much speculation about the payments made to me at the time and several of the European players were unhappy. But I spoke to them and gave them the facts."

The tournaments in question were the Dubai Desert Classic, the Murphy's Irish Open and the Canon European Masters in Switzerland.

At Mount Juliet, Norman was reported as receiving over £200,000 to appear, a sum Colin Montgomerie described as "outrageous".

The 40-year-old Australian was questioned about that when he travelled to Scotland for the Alfred Dunhill Cup at St Andrews and commented: "That figure was ridiculous. I don't know where the figures come from."

The European Tour guidelines to sponsors are that they spend no more than 25 per cent of their prize money on appearance fees. Yet to get Norman, Fred Couples, Nick Price, Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie and Bernhard Langer to Dubai last year, the sponsors there were thought to have spent far more than the £450,000 prize fund.