Facts About Greg Norman

Golf Monthly

10/06/2025

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 also

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

02:30Great 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, I grew up in Queensland, Australia.

02:46I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef. I've dived with sharks. And that was what I did as a kid.

02:53The next day, the local paper at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had the Great White Shark in their

02:58headlines. Despite his relative lack of success in the major championships, Norman is still

03:03regarded as one of the greatest talents of his generation. His dominance over the world of golf

03:08in the 1980s and the 1990s is probably best expressed via the official world golf rankings.

03:15He finished the year on top of the rankings on seven separate occasions and spent 331 weeks as the

03:21world's number one golfer. This hall of ranking points is second only to Tiger Woods and Norman was

03:27also the first person in tour history to surpass $10 million in career earnings.

03:32So let's move away from his exploits on the golf course and start to learn more about Greg Norman,

03:37the entrepreneur. He founded Great White Shark Enterprises in 1993 after leaving his previous

03:43management group. Starting with course design and apparel in the late 1980s and early 1990s,

03:48the larger company now represents over a dozen smaller companies.

03:53They 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.

04:10Norman is the CEO of LIV Golf Investments. Funded entirely by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia,

04:17LIV Golf Investments launched the LIV Golf Invitational Series in June 2022.

04:23Thanks to the huge spending power of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the series has attracted the

04:28likes of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka away from the PGA Tour.

04:33The LIV Tour is one of the clearest examples of sports washing that can currently be seen in the industry.

04:39Sports washing is the practice of a government using sport to improve a tarnished reputation.

04:43It's used to try and direct attention away from poor human rights records and corruption within the

04:49government of a nation state. Saudi Arabia has been using sport in this way for a number of years now

04:54to cover up its appalling human rights record with F1 Grand Prix, boxing matches and one-off football

05:01matches being hosted in the country. As well as recently buying Newcastle United Football Club,

05:06the Public Investment Fund has turned its sights onto golf and Greg Norman is, at the time of recording,

05:12the current mouthpiece for the Saudi regime funding this breakaway series.

05:16Moving away from his highly controversial involvement with LIV Golf,

05:20Norman had a very brief broadcasting career. In 2014, Fox Sports announced that Norman would

05:26join Joe Buck as part of its coverage of the USGA Championships. Following plenty of criticism after

05:32his on-air performance at the 2015 US Open, Norman was let go from his role at Fox Sports in January 2016.

05:39Norman has been married to interior designer Kirsten Kuttner since 2010. His first wife was American

05:44flight attendant Laura Andrassi and the pair were together from 1981 until 2006. They had two children

05:51together as well called Greg Jr. and Morgan Lee. He was also married to former world number one tennis

05:57player Chris Everett, but the pair's marriage only lasted 15 months.

06:01Greg Norman has led quite the life on and off the course. If you hadn't heard of him prior to his

06:08LIV Golf exploits, hopefully you've learned a little bit about how good he was on the course

06:13prior to his extensive entrepreneurial endeavours. If you want to hear more about the LIV Golf series

06:19or find out more about some of golf's greatest players, check out the news and tour sections on the

06:24Golf monthly website.

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