00:00 Famous for being one of the most prolific golfers of his generation,
00:04 many of you may now only know Greg Norman as the CEO of a controversial breakaway golf league.
00:09 Whether you know him for his golf or his LIV golf exploits,
00:14 let's get to know more about the career and life of Greg Norman.
00:17 Born in Queensland, Australia, Norman played rugby and cricket in his youth while he aspired
00:24 to be a professional surfer. His mother, Toni, was a single-figure handicapper
00:29 and taught Greg how to play golf when he was just 15. Within 18 months of that,
00:34 Norman went from a 27-year-old handicapper to scratch. He would then turn pro six years later,
00:39 in 1976. Norman joined the European Tour in 1977, securing his first win in his debut season.
00:46 After much success, he joined the PGA Tour in 1983 and won his first event over there in 1984.
00:53 Throughout his decorated career, Norman would go on to claim 88 professional titles,
00:58 including two majors, a players' championship, 20 PGA Tour wins and 14 European Tour wins.
01:04 So let's dig a little deeper into those two major wins I just mentioned.
01:08 Norman's first major win was at the 1986 Open Championship at Turnberry,
01:13 and his second came, also at the Open Championship, in 1993 at Royal St George's.
01:19 However, Norman could never quite get over the line in the other three majors.
01:22 He had a whopping 28 top-10 finishes in the rest of the major championships combined,
01:28 and came runner-up eight times. At the 1996 Masters, he relinquished a six-shot lead on
01:34 the final day to finish second to Nick Faldo. Shall we dig a little bit deeper again into
01:39 that 1996 Masters, probably the most infamous moment of Norman's career?
01:43 In the first round, he shot only the second ever 63 recorded at the Masters,
01:49 birdieing nine at the final 12 holes at Augusta National. He followed that up with solid rounds
01:54 of 69 and 71 to hold a six-shot lead over Nick Faldo heading into the final round.
02:00 Norman still maintained a four-shot lead after seven holes on the final day, but proceeded to
02:04 lose five shots over the next five holes to hand the tournament on a plate to Faldo.
02:10 In the end, Faldo shot 67 on the Sunday, while Norman shot 78, and he finished in second place,
02:16 five shots behind Sir Nick. To this day, it is one of the greatest collapses in major
02:21 championship history. It is also the largest ever lead blown in a PGA tournament,
02:26 a record that has yet to be broken. His nickname is the Great White Shark,
02:31 which he picked up at the 1981 Masters while he was introducing himself to the press.
02:36 Norman, who led the event after the second day, was a relatively unknown player at the time,
02:40 but when asked by one of the media where he was from, he said, "I grew up in Queensland,
02:45 Australia. I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef. I've dived with sharks,
02:50 and that was what I did as a kid." The next day, the local paper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution,
02:56 had the Great White Shark in their headline. Despite his relative lack of success in the
03:01 major championships, Norman is still regarded as one of the greatest talents of his generation.
03:06 His dominance over the world of golf in the 1980s and the 1990s is probably best expressed
03:12 via the official World Golf Rankings. He finished the year on top of the rankings on seven separate
03:18 occasions and spent 331 weeks as the world's number one golfer. This hall of ranking points
03:24 is second only to Tiger Woods, and Norman was also the first person in tour history
03:29 to surpass $10 million in career earnings. Let's move away from his exploits on the golf course and
03:35 start to learn more about Greg Norman, the entrepreneur. He founded Great White Shark
03:40 Enterprises in 1993 after leaving his previous management group. Starting with course design
03:45 and apparel in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the larger company now represents over a dozen
03:51 smaller companies. They include things like real estate, eyewear, golf carts, weightboarding
03:57 complexes, beef products, restaurants, investments, and wine. The company, which is now simply known
04:05 as Greg Norman Company, reports hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually.
04:10 Norman is the CEO of LIV Golf Investments. Funded entirely by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi
04:16 Arabia, LIV Golf Investments launched the LIV Golf Invitational Series in June 2022. Thanks to the
04:23 huge spending power of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the series has attracted the likes of Phil
04:28 Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Brooks Koepka away from the PGA Tour. The LIV Tour is one of the
04:34 clearest examples of sports washing that can currently be seen in the industry. Sports washing
04:39 is the practice of a government using sport to improve a tarnished reputation. It's used to try
04:45 and direct attention away from poor human rights records and corruption within the government of a
04:50 nation state. Saudi Arabia has been using sport in this way for a number of years now to cover up its
04:55 appalling human rights record, with F1 Grand Prix, boxing matches, and one-off football matches being
05:02 hosted in the country. As well as recently buying Newcastle United Football Club, the Public
05:06 Investment Fund has turned its sights onto golf and Greg Norman is, at the time of recording,
05:12 the current mouthpiece for the Saudi regime funding this breakaway series. Moving away from
05:17 his highly controversial involvement with LIV Golf, Norman had a very brief broadcasting career.
05:23 In 2014, Fox Sports announced that Norman would join Joe Buck as part of its coverage of the USGA
05:28 Championships. Following plenty of criticism after his on-air performance at the 2015 US Open,
05:35 Norman was let go from his role at Fox Sports in January 2016. Norman has been married to
05:40 interior designer Kirsten Kutner since 2010. His first wife was American flight attendant Laura
05:45 Andrasi and the pair were together from 1981 until 2006. They had two children together as well
05:52 called Greg Jr and Morgan Lee. He was also married to former world number one tennis player Chris
05:57 Everett, but the pair's marriage only lasted for 15 months. Greg Norman has led quite the life
06:04 on and off the course. If you hadn't heard of him prior to his LIV Golf exploits, hopefully you've
06:10 learned a little bit about how good he was on the course prior to his extensive entrepreneurial
06:15 endeavours. If you want to hear more about the LIV Golf series or find out more about some of
06:20 golf's greatest players, check out the news and tour sections on the Golf Monthly website.
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