“LIV never put an offer to him,” Norman said on the sidelines of LIV’s latest stop in Adelaide. “This is just typical white noise that gets out there in the industry.”

LIV has signed a slew of golf’s elite since its formation, with Spanish star Jon Rahm the last big name to make the switch last December in a move reported to be worth around US$500 million.

McIlroy has been increasingly conciliatory towards LIV professionals in recent months amid negotiations with the PGA Tour over a merger, but insisted to NBC he planned to remain on the PGA Tour “for the rest of my career”.

Norman said he would always be welcome should he change his mind.

“If Rory was willing to sit down with us and have a conversation with us, would we be happy to sit down with him – 100 per cent,” he said.

“No different to any other player who would be interested in coming over to play with us.”

Norman revealed he recently sat down with another “top, top PGA player” to lay out the facts of what LIV represented and what it could deliver on a global basis.

“And he was so impressed and he said, ‘that’s not what we’re told in the locker room’, and that this was really impressive.

“He made the decision and he called me up two days later and said ‘I’m deciding to stay where I’m at’.

“I said, ‘happy days, you made the decision on facts. The door is always open if you want to come back and have a conversation’.”

Norman also said he was “very open-minded” about Rahm’s call last week called for the LIV circuit moving to the traditional 72-hole format used on the PGA Tour.

Each stop on LIV is currently a 54-hole tournament over three days, with a “shotgun start” where 18 groups of three players tee off simultaneously on different holes, with no cut.

The former Masters champion reiterated the comments in Adelaide on Wednesday, sitting next to Norman.

“I think there’s a level of comfort when I say that because it’s a little bit more of what we’re used to seeing in golf,” he said, when asked about the prospect by AFP.

“I think it could help a lot of fans’ trust in LIV a little bit more because that’s a lot of the complaints that I see from a lot of people.”

Norman said he was open to the idea.

“I think, from LIV’s perspective, we’re very open-minded about it, but you’ve got to understand there’s economic impact about putting television on for 72 holes,” he said.

“It’s a great conversation to have. We will continue to have that conversation, going forward. But we sit back and say, what value do we get putting it on television on Thursday?

“How do we build out in the future? How do we get more people to the golf course? Maybe it is Thursday and you allow another 30,000 people coming in on a Thursday.

“There are things that we sit back and look at to see what is the most optimal solution to make this a better and better and better event, and 72 holes is discussed.”

Rahm used the analogy of global football to rationalise why 72 holes would be better, pointing to all leagues, no matter where, following the same rules.

“In football, European football, you have the Premier League, you have the Spanish League, you have the German League, you have Serie A, you have the Champions League, the Euro Cup, many other things,” he said in Adelaide.

“The one thing I’ve realised is they all play under the same set of rules. While we play under most set of rules, the one key difference is 72 holes.

“That’s one of the main reasons why I believe it could help us.”

But the former world number one also acknowledged that it all depended on what worked best financially for LIV’s power brokers.

“At the end of the day, LIV is a business. If it doesn’t fit the product, it doesn’t fit the product,” he said.