Facts About Greg Norman

Golf Monthly

26/06/2025

Transcript

00:00Famous for being one of the most prolific golfers of his generation, many of you may

00:05now only know Greg Norman as the CEO of a controversial breakaway golf league. Whether

00:10you know him for his golf or his LIV golf exploits, let's get to know more about the

00:16career and life of Greg Norman. Born in Queensland, Australia, Norman played rugby and cricket

00:23in his youth while he aspired to be a professional surfer. His mother, Tony, was a single figure

00:28handicapper and taught Greg how to play golf when he was just 15. Within 18 months of that,

00:34Norman went from a 27 handicapper to scratch. He would then turn pro six years later in 1976.

00:41Norman joined the European Tour in 1977, securing his first win in his debut season. After much

00:47success, he joined the PGA Tour in 1983 and won his first event over there in 1984. Throughout

00:54his decorated career, Norman would go on to claim 88 professional titles, including two majors,

01:00a Players' Championship, 20 PGA Tour wins and 14 European Tour wins. So let's dig a little deeper

01:06into those two major wins I just mentioned. Norman's first major win was at the 1986 Open

01:12Championship at Turnberry and his second came, also at the Open Championship, in 1993 at Royal St George's.

01:19However, Norman could never quite get over the line in the other three majors.

01:23He had a whopping 28 top 10 finishes in the rest of the major championships combined

01:28and came runner-up eight times. At the 1996 Masters, he relinquished a six-shot lead on the final day

01:35to finish second to Nick Faldo. Shall we dig a little bit deeper again into that 1996 Masters,

01:41probably the most infamous moment of Norman's career. In the first round, he shot only the second ever 63

01:48recorded at the Masters, birdieing nine at the final 12 holes Augusta National. He followed that

01:53up with solid rounds of 69 and 71 to hold a six-shot lead over Nick Faldo heading into the final round.

02:00Norman still maintained a four-shot lead after seven holes on the final day, but proceeded to lose five

02:05shots over the next five holes to hand the tournament on a plate to Faldo. In the end,

02:11Faldo shot 67 on the Sunday, while Norman shot 78 and he finished in second place, five shots behind

02:18Sir Nick. To this day, it is one of the greatest collapses in major championship history. It is

02:23also the largest ever lead blown in a PGA tournament, a record that has yet to be broken. His nickname is

02:30the Great White Shark, which he picked up at the 1981 Masters while he was introducing himself to the

02:35press. Norman, who led the event after the second day, was a relatively unknown player at the time,

02:41but when asked by one of the media where he was from, he said,

02:44I grew up in Queensland, Australia. I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef.

02:49I've dived with sharks. And that was what I did as a kid. The next day, the local paper,

02:54the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had the Great White Shark in their headline.

02:59Despite his relative lack of success in the major championships, Norman is still regarded as one of

03:04the greatest talents of his generation. His dominance over the world of golf in the 1980s and

03:09the 1990s is probably best expressed via the official world golf rankings. He finished the year on top of

03:16the rankings on seven separate occasions and spent 331 weeks as the world's number one golfer.

03:23This hall of ranking points is second only to Tiger Woods, and Norman was also the first person

03:28in tour history to surpass $10 million in career earnings. So let's move away from his exploits on

03:34the golf course and start to learn more about Greg Norman, the entrepreneur. He founded Great White Shark

03:40Enterprises in 1993 after leaving his previous management group, starting with course design and

03:45apparel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The larger company now represents over a dozen smaller

03:52companies. They include things like real estate, eyewear, golf carts, wakeboarding complexes,

03:59beef products, restaurants, investments, and wine. The company, which is now simply known as

04:05Greg Norman Company, reports hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually. Norman is the CEO of

04:12LIV Golf Investments. Funded entirely by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia, LIV Golf Investments

04:19launched the LIV Golf Invitational Series in June 2022. Thanks to the huge spending power of the Saudi

04:25Public Investment Fund, the series has attracted the likes of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and

04:30Brooks Koepka away from the PGA Tour. The LIV Tour is one of the clearest examples of sports washing that

04:36can currently be seen in the industry. Sports washing is the practice of a government using

04:41sport to improve a tarnished reputation. It's used to try and direct attention away from poor human

04:47rights records and corruption within the government of a nation state. Saudi Arabia has been using sport

04:53in this way for a number of years now to cover up its appalling human rights record, with F1 Grand Prix,

04:59boxing matches and one-off football matches being hosted in the country. As well as recently buying

05:05Newcastle United Football Club, the Public Investment Fund has turned its sights onto golf and

05:09Greg Norman is, at the time of recording, the current mouthpiece for the Saudi regime funding this

05:15breakaway series. Moving away from his highly controversial involvement with LIV Golf, Norman had a

05:21very brief broadcasting career. In 2014 Fox Sports announced that Norman would join Joe Buck as part of

05:27its coverage of the USGA Championships. Following plenty of criticism after his on-air performance at the

05:332015 US Open, Norman was let go from his role at Fox Sports in January 2016. Norman has been married to

05:40interior designer Kirsten Kuttner since 2010. His first wife was American flight attendant Laura Andrassi

05:46and the pair were together from 1981 until 2006. They had two children together as well called Greg

05:52Jr and Morgan Lee. He was also married to former world number one tennis player Chris Everett,

05:58but the pair's marriage only lasted for 15 months. Greg Norman has led quite the life on and off the

06:05course. If you hadn't heard of him prior to his LIV Golf exploits, hopefully you've learned a little

06:11bit about how good he was on the course prior to his extensive entrepreneurial endeavours. If you want to

06:17hear more about the LIV Golf series or find out more about some of golf's greatest players, check out

06:22the news and tour sections on the Golf Monthly website.

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