Facts About Greg Norman
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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
02:05five shots 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
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. I've dived with sharks and that
02:51was what I did as a kid. The next day, the local paper at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had the
02:57Great White Shark in their headline. Despite his relative lack of success in the major championships,
03:02Norman is still regarded as one of the greatest talents of his generation. His dominance over the
03:08world of golf in 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
03:21weeks as the world's number one golfer. This hall of ranking points is second only to Tiger Woods
03:26and Norman was also 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. They include things like real
03:55estate, eyewear, golf carts, wakeboarding complexes, beef products, restaurants, investments and wine.
04:03The company, which is now simply known as Greg Norman Company, reports hundreds of millions of dollars
04:09in revenue annually. Norman is the CEO of LIV Golf Investments. Funded entirely by the Sovereign Wealth
04:16Fund of Saudi Arabia, LIV 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. The LIV Tour is one of
04:34the clearest examples of sports washing that can currently be seen in the industry. Sports washing is the
04:40practice of a government using sport to improve a tarnished reputation. It's used to try and direct
04:45attention away from poor human rights records and corruption within the government of a nation state.
04:51Saudi Arabia has been using sport in this way for a number of years now to cover up its appalling human
04:56rights record, with F1 Grand Prix, boxing matches and one-off football matches being hosted in the
05:03country. As well as recently buying Newcastle United Football Club, the Public Investment Fund has turned its
05:08sights onto golf and Greg Norman is, at the time of recording, the current mouthpiece for the Saudi
05:14regime funding this breakaway series. Moving 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 join Joe Buck
05:26as part of its coverage of the USGA Championships. Following plenty of criticism after his on-air performance
05:33at 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.
06:02Greg 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.