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A Shark's tale
How golf’s tragic character became a golf conglomerate and an environmental hero.
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One would think that a man who owns his own helicopter — among myriad other luxurious toys — would be found some place other than a retired landfill
in Missouri.
And yet, here he is. Greg Norman, the Great White Shark, swimming in a sea of 30-year-old trash.
More specifically, Norman stands in the middle of a brownfield site east of Kansas City, in Independence, Mo. In some areas, as shallow as three feet below his feet, is the trash of Kansas
Citians, circa 1980.
But on the surface is the future site of The Club at Stone Canyon, a Greg Norman Signature design. It’s 362 acres of former landfill and rock quarry that, by spring 2008, will be the newest high-end golf course in the Kansas City area, accepting only 360 members.
Thousands of people’s trash, soon to become 360 members’ treasure.
And here Norman, hall of fame golfer, current multibusiness entrepreneur, stands, once again triumphant. Sure, it’s going to be a beautiful course when it’s all said and done, and yes, he’s probably making a cool million on the project. But if you can catch him
smiling, it’s because he knows that this is another project that is helping better the environment that he cherishes.
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The Greg Norman designed Vintage GC in New South Wales, Australia, opened in 2002 and has quickly become one of the top public golf courses in Australia. Photos courtesy of Great White Shark Enterprises |
But when asked, Norman, master politician, points credit for the environmental improvement to the course’s principal owner, Larry Lundine.
“We’re going to create something here that’s going to improve the environment — fulfilling Larry’s dream,” Norman says. “From my perspective, kudos to a gentleman like him. He’s enhancing this environment.”
If it’s Larry’s dream, then it’s Greg’s reality.
The Midas touch
For every dramatic loss he suffered in the game of golf — the 1986 PGA Championship, the 1987 Masters, the 1996 Masters — he seems to have 100 dramatic victories in the business world. And he makes sure that when he wins, the environment wins with him. A successful golf design business, a huge golf clothing brand, a wine that garners a 96 rating from Wine Spectator … Norman has the Midas touch. Or, as his friend and fellow countryman and PGA Tour player Steve Elkington says, “If he fell in the river, he’d come out with a trout in each pocket.”
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Though back problems have kept Norman from playing much on the Champions Tour, it’s not like the Hall of Fame golfer is at a loss for things to do. With a design business, a clothing line, a production company, housing developments, a turf production company, a wine label, a restaurant and even an Australian beef company, playing golf might not be high on Norman’s list of things to do. |
With that Midas touch, the Shark finds another prize in his jaws — that of the 2008 Old Tom Morris Award, GCSAA’s most prestigious honor. The OTM Award is presented each year to an individual who “through a continuing lifetime commitment to the game of golf has helped to mold the welfare of the game in a manner and style exemplified by Old Tom Morris.”
Luckily for The Environmental Institute for Golf, Norman’s Midas touch has reached out in its direction. Norman’s signing on with The Institute in its inaugural year in 2003 gave the philanthropic arm of GCSAA instant credibility, according to GCSAA CEO Steve Mona, CAE.
“We had a high-profile, smart industry leader involved right off the bat, and he was much more than just a figurehead,” Mona says. “He has given us access to a lot of people in his network, and gotten people involved. It’s not so much fundraising, but friend-raising. He’s gotten us closer to individuals we didn’t have relationships with before.”
Helping GCSAA’s philanthropic arm aside, Norman has indeed lived a life dedicated to golf. As a popular player, a successful designer, a shrewd golf businessman, a turf producer, an environmentalist — it all boils down to Norman elevating the game of golf, and its relatively newfound image as a proponent of the environment, on a global basis.
“I think he’s done more for the environment than anyone else in the profession — he really has,” says legendary golf course architect and Greg Norman mentor Pete Dye. A winner of the Old Tom Morris award himself back in 2003, Dye knows a thing or two about who does and doesn’t deserve the OTM Award. Norman, he says, was an easy pick.
“Sure, he’s a great player, but he’s gone out of his way for (promoting environmentalism in the golf) community,” Dye says. “Tiger (Woods) has done a tremendous amount for his school in California (the Tiger Woods Learning Center, Anaheim, Calif.), Jack (Nicklaus) has done a lot for the hospital in Columbus (Columbus Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio). But Greg has done more — including any corporations, any Titleist or Nike. And that’s for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. So I think he deserves it more than anyone I know.”
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Norman and his design team look at plans during the development of Red Sky GC, located in Colorado’s Vail Valley. It’s Norman’s desire to get a construction superintendent at the site as soon as possible. “I try to explain to the owner, think five years out. Don’t think now,” Norman says. “You might not want to spend money on a salary for six months, but that six months salary is going to save you hundreds of thousands of dollars down the line.” |
Green start
Norman has long had a passion for the outdoors. As a young man growing up in Australia, Norman would spend weeks in northern Queensland, deep in the Australian
outback.
It was there that Norman learned to navigate by the stars, to judge distance without instruments, to find scarce water and to hunt wild boars and water buffalo. Norman was schooled on nine of the 10 most dangerous snakes in the world, all nine indigenous to Australia.
An avid outdoorsman, Norman says in his 2006 autobiography, “The Way of the Shark: Lessons on Golf, Business, and Life,” that being in the outback got his “blood flowing and all (his) senses running at peak capacity.”
His love for the outdoors led him to sports — Australian rules football, cricket and squash, to name a few. A fierce competitor, these team sports began to bother Norman because he could play well, and his team could still lose, or conversely, he could play poorly, and his team could still win. This led to his discovery of golf at age 15. In a mere four years, he’d be playing professionally.
It was early in his golf career that Norman learned of the occupation of the golf course superintendent. It wasn’t the most pleasant learning experience.
Once a year, about 20 members at Virginia Golf Club in Brisbane would travel to the local chicken farm and shovel chicken manure. Norman quickly found himself on one of these chicken manure shoveling expeditions.
“We’d put the manure on the back of trucks, take it to the golf club and break it down, and throw it across the golf course,” Norman recalls during a conversation with GCM at the Tiburon (“Shark” in Spanish) GC in Naples, Fla. “I worked with the superintendent on that, and I’m real proud of what we did.”
Norman looks back now and realizes that spreading pure chicken manure across the golf course probably wasn’t the best idea, but the golf course did look great all the time, he says. Most important, shoveling that chicken manure gave him an early education into appreciating the work that went on to maintain the golf course.
“It showed me the behind-the-scenes, the effort that takes place with the superintendents of golf courses,” Norman says. “It put a little bit of a better understanding for me that these guys are the unsung heroes.”
Playing days
Norman quickly rose through the ranks of Australian golf. Just when it looked like he would burst onto the U.S. golf scene, Norman surprised everyone by focusing his efforts on playing professionally everywhere but the U.S.
His first non-Australian victory came in 1977 in Japan at the Kuzaha Open, when he was only 22. Like any kid would do, he took the $7,000 cash he won and dumped it in a pile on his hotel bed. His first thought: “What am I going to do with all this?”
It’s a great problem to have. Norman would find himself with the same great problem many more times.
With 91 professional victories, including 20 PGA Tour wins and two British Opens (1986 at Royal Turnberry and 1993 at Royal St. George), Norman was ranked No. 1 in the world for 331 weeks. All that adds up to a lot of dough — he was the first professional golfer to surpass the $10 million mark in career earnings.
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The Tournament Players Club Sugarloaf, located just north of Atlanta, was Greg Norman’s first golf course design in the U.S., opening in 1997. Every year the course hosts the PGA Tour’s AT&T Classic. Sugarloaf is arguably Pete Dye’s favorite Norman-designed course. “But really, the one I play best that day is the one I like the most,” Dye laughs. |
But Norman is probably best known for bad luck and bad losses. Some consider his meltdown at the 1996 Masters, where his 6-stroke lead became a 5-stroke loss to Nick Faldo, one of the worst sports implosions of all time. But by losing he endeared himself to many, as it all made for great theater.
“I’ve always been a fan of his, I loved his style and charisma,” Ricky Heine, CGCS, president of GCSAA, says. “All his challenges, the close calls, the almost-wins… it made me connect with him, because I’ve gone through losses. And he got through them all with a smile on his face. He persevered.”
“He popularized golf,” Mona says. “Even though he was No. 1 for over 300 weeks, he was also a tragic figure, with all the tournaments he didn’t win.”
“A lot of people say I’m unlucky,” Norman admits in his book. “They’ve seen me on the golf course swallowing some tough losses. But they haven’t seen all the good things I’ve experienced.”
Back problems have prevented Norman from extending his playing days on the Champions Tour. But Norman has made sure that he’s not been bored in the aftermath of his playing career.
Business is good
Norman doesn’t like to do much of anything halfway. So when Cobra Golf called him to inquire about an endorsement deal, Norman walked away with a 12 percent stake in the company (which he would eventually turn into $44 million) as well as a seat on the board of directors.
And so, Great White Shark Enterprises was born. Norman had the foresight to know that his gift for golf wouldn’t last him all his life. His goal was to have multiple businesses available to him upon leaving the game, businesses that capitalized on his name and popularity.
“He has transcended golf from a standpoint of being a player to being a businessman,” Mona points out. “There are traditional routes you take — a lot of former golfers end up in design, fine. But how many end up with a clothing brand, a wine label, a production company? If you look just at golf, the only ones who would compare are Jack (Nicklaus) and Arnold (Palmer), to go from players to conglomerates, and I think Norman outdoes both of them, too. He’s done more than just lend his name to products. I’d say he’s the gold standard of bridging playing days to becoming a force within the game.”
From his turfgrass company (Norman’s GN-1 was used at Super Bowl XXXIII and XXXV as well as the 1999 World Series) to his beef business (Greg Norman Australian Prime is now on the menu at many a clubhouse in the States), Norman’s nickname seems even more apt in retirement than it did during his playing days.
After all, a golfer can literally play a Greg Norman golf course with Greg Norman turf, while wearing Greg Norman golf clothing and using Greg Norman-endorsed equipment, and then go to the clubhouse and have a glass of Greg Norman wine to accompany a Greg Norman steak.
The golf world is indeed in Shark-infested waters.
Constant motion
A real shark doesn’t need sleep like a human does, and apparently, The Shark doesn’t need much sleep, either. He woke up at 4:55 a.m. on this day, and says if he gets six hours of sleep in a night, he feels like he’s slept too much. The indefatigable Norman is always moving. To point: When GCSAA executives offered to give him a free hour during the 2008 Golf Industry Show so he could prepare for accepting the OTM Award, he politely asked that any downtime be eliminated from his schedule.
Those who work closely with him know that the Shark doesn’t like to sit still.
“His leadership skills are very matter-of-fact — ‘let’s get down to business,’” says Bill Kubly, CEO of Landscapes Unlimited and fellow member of The Institute’s Advisory Council. “He’s not stand-offish at all, but he’s driven to succeed.”
“Procrastination is not in my vocab. I set goals on a daily basis,” Norman says about wanting to get as much out of every day as possible. “You just can’t wake up and say, ‘OK, now what do I do?’ and expect the day to go productively. Establish a plan. You’ve got to wake up — or go to bed the night before — and say, ‘OK, tomorrow I’ve got this, I’ve got this, I’ve got this…’ It’s setting goals on a daily basis. …And I think every great superintendent does that with the maintenance he has to be responsible for. He has to have a daily planner.”
And apparently, in Norman’s daily planner, there’s no room for excuses.
“We were down at The Medalist Club (for an EIFG meeting), and Greg was physically unable to play — he had just had back surgery,” Kubly says. “It would have been real easy for him to slough us off ... but he came out to the range, gave us swing tips, drove the course and had dinner with us.”
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Jason McCoy (left) is the longest tenured GCSAA member on Greg Norman’s staff, at 22 years. McCoy says Norman has a little bit of superintendent in his blood, always backing superintendents “100 percent” while constantly wanting to test out new turfgrasses. “That’s how we got into the turf business,” McCoy says. “He wants to know about all the turfgrasses — he wants to touch them, feel them, see them.” Norman’s thoughts on turf? “My jury is still out on paspalum,” he says. |
A quick study in design
Norman says that of his many companies, the golf course design business is his favorite. The clothing brand would come in second.
The design business has been good to Norman. The Sydney, Australia, office and the Jupiter, Fla., office of Greg Norman Golf Course Design combine for a shade under 70 golf course projects around the world.
Jason McCoy, senior vice president of Greg Norman Golf Course Design, a 20-year affiliate member of GCSAA and former employee of Pete Dye, has been along for the ride since about day one. Norman liked McCoy’s work ethic so much he asked Dye’s permission to offer McCoy a job as the first employee of GNGCD’s U.S. branch. Dye gave his blessing, and now McCoy, only 44 years old, has seen about every corner of the world working for Norman. “I’ve been very fortunate lately,” he laughs.
He’s been to Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Brazil, Dubai, Spain, Mexico and South Africa — all in the last six months. He estimates he’s been around the world three times this year.
Norman was a quick study when it came to design, according to McCoy. McCoy’s path crossed with Norman’s when Dye was hired to build Norman’s Medalist GC in Hobe Sound, Fla.
“Greg came in as a co-designer on that project, and I was concerned,” McCoy admits. “We had never been involved with a player (on a design).”
Norman lived less than two miles away from the construction site, and McCoy constantly saw him at the course. His reluctance to work with a Tour pro quickly left, as Norman was serious about learning and building a great golf course.
“He was always asking questions — he listens and he learns,” McCoy says. “He’s a student of the game.”
Dye first met Norman at Old Marsh CC, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where Norman was a member and Dye was the designer. He only knew Norman well enough to say “hello,” “goodbye” and “thanks for playing,” Dye says. “Out of the blue he asked me to build the Medalist.”
“You hear about these kids; you see them on TV. Well, here he is now, and he’s standing right next to me as I’m chopping down a tree,” Dye says with a laugh. “He really got interested in the ‘why’s’ of what we were doing. He was there enough that you could explain it to him, and he understood. You’d think a player would be interested in the playability, the contour of the greens. But he was interested in the runoff and the drainage.”
Dye won’t take any credit for getting Norman hooked on golf course design — after all, Norman had already designed a few courses back in Australia by this time — but Norman does call Dye “brilliant” in his book, and says that Dye taught him the ins and outs of golf course design.
Of course, the Medalist was a unique project, one that Dye calls one of his “most environmental golf courses.” It took an extra effort from the design team, and Norman was there for every step of it.
“When we built the Medalist, they were really cracking down on the wetlands in Florida,” Dye says. “We had wetlands on one side, wetlands on the other side, so we had to install a lot of drains… So Greg was immediately exposed to what was going on in the environment with golf.”
Speaking with emphasis on environment
Though the Australian outback seems a world away from a golf course fairway stateside, Norman treats both with an equal amount of respect.
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Greg Norman (at head of table) chairs a May 2006 meeting of The |
Norman outlines the five design principles of GNGCD in his book. Two of the five directly relate to the environment. Principle No. 1 is “Least disturbance,” and principle No. 4 is “Embrace the environmentalists.”
“I’d done plenty of traveling and had enough experience to observe the negative impacts of human development on the environment,” Norman writes in his book. “I’d seen desecration of wildlife, forestry and fishing. I had viewed entire sections of reefs bleached out. And I’d witness the slash-and-burn techniques of a number of unsavory developers. Because of all that, I resolved to take the opposite approach and be a good steward of the environment. After all, the earth doesn’t belong to us, we belong to the earth.”
Steve Elkington believes that the passion for the environment can be explained quite simply: It’s bred into an Australian’s DNA.
“We’re brought up that way,” he says. “We try to leave everything as we found it, if not better. Australia is just that way, it’s such a pristine place. It’s bred into us. And Greg, being the world traveler that he is, he’s seen the other side of it — the ugly golf courses, the ugly cities that have been destroyed by pollution. He’s just a custodian of golf. He’s just taking care of things.”
“When I first played golf in the late ’70s and early ’80s in Europe, golf was looked at as an elitist sport, and for degradation to the environment,” Norman tells GCM. “I’ll never forget that, and it always ticked me off big-time.”
From listening to Norman speak multiple times, there’s one idiosyncracy that stands out in his speech pattern —when he talks about the environment, his voice quickens. If there’s a table nearby, odds are he’s using two fingers to stab at it to enforce his points.
“Take a look at a residential community with no golf course — they slash and burn and take everything down,” Norman says quickly, while stabbing at the table with his fingers. “You just take a look at state and federal governments, when they put in a new freeway system, they don’t care about wetlands or marsh. They don’t care about the runoff of a supermarket, where the water goes down a drain and gets flushed right into the ocean. And yet everyone pointed their fingers (at golf courses). Well, I’ll tell you what — we’re a hell of a lot cleaner than the majority of things that are built out there.”
“Greg’s passion and support comes through loud and clear,” Teri Harris, GCSAA’s managing director of development for The Institute, says. “His willingness to use his platforms to inform and educate audiences about environmental stewardship has been invaluable to The Institute. His staff at Great White Shark Enterprises have also helped advance the mission. This is just another indication of the value Greg places on ensuring golf’s compatibility with the
environment.”
“A lot of people lend their name to a great cause like The Environmental Institute for Golf,” Kubly says. “But he’s jumped in with both feet. His time is so valuable, and that he takes the time to (work with The Institute) is so amazing to me. He only gets into things he truly believes in.”
Mona says that when he first met with Norman in Jupiter to talk about getting him involved with The Institute, he had low expectations.
“I went into that meeting thinking that we’d get his signature on a letter we wrote, take some photos with him… maybe get him at an event,” Mona recalls. “He looked me right in the eye, and he said, ‘I will not be a figurehead. I will be fully involved, as will key people in my organization.’ And he told me that he only gets involved in things he believes in passionately.”
“These are my passions, these are the things I see take place,” Norman says of his involvement with The Institute. “It’s a great connector for me — I build golf courses. I get asked into a lot of advisory boards, or to help other people. You have to be passionate about it and believe in it. Steve Mona did a great job with it; unfortunately, he’s leaving. But he did a great job because he believed in it. We’ll find his replacement, we’ll find a believer in it.”
The Shark scrams
Though the assembled media at The Club at Stone Canyon all had a chance to ask a question during the press event, it seems most of them waited until the conclusion to pose a one-on-one question. A reporter with the Kansas City Star gets in a quick one-on-one while a photographer gets a few posed photos. But just when the line gets fully formed, Norman’s handler whisks him away, fully aware that their tour of the country isn’t done yet. After all, there’s another Greg Norman Signature course being developed just a few states away.
Such is the life of an environmentalist mega-millionaire golf hall of famer.
“The son of a bitch is 52, and I can’t keep up with him,” laughs McCoy as he talks from the home office in Jupiter. “I got in here at 7:30 this morning, and he was already in his office.”
“I’ve got to be aware that a lot of other people can’t keep going at the pace I like to go at,” Norman says, almost disappointedly. “I’ve changed a little bit, I must admit. Now I do all my trips Monday through Friday, because my staff has family, and they want to be home with their families on the weekends. I was away on weekends (during my playing days) and I didn’t like it, and my children didn’t like it. To this day they still talk about it, and they’re 25 and 22. So I try to make every effort that my staff can be home with their families on the weekend.”
And what would the Shark like to do this weekend? Take the helicopter for a ride? Or take the jet to a beach somewhere?
“Sometimes, it’s nice to just clean the garage,” Norman says. “How about that?”
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