No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 522: Hughes Norton

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Sports agent Hughes Norton joins the pod for some great stories on signing Tiger Woods to his first professional representation contract, his relationship with Earl Woods, his introduction to the golf business through Mark McCormack and IMG, and his experiences managing other top ranked players like Greg Norman.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Ling Up Podcast. Sully here, got an interview coming to you shortly with Hughes Norton. If you don't know the name, Hughes was an agent in the business for the golf business for a long, long time, including the guy that signed Tiger Woods out of college into

his really professional career. Hughes has stories four days. He does not hold back in telling them stories about managing Greg Norman for 11 years, how he learned under Mark McCormick, what it was like to manage a young Tiger Woods getting fired by Tiger Woods is relationship with Earl Woods, how they manage to set up that relationship with Tiger Woods. Man, I could talk to this guy about golf and his stories for hours. He shared an hour with us. I hope to say he will come back in the future to tell us more stories because if he can't tell, he's got plenty of them. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at Woop, the personalized digital fitness and health coach and official fitness wearable of the PGA

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Here's who's Norton. So I think every college kid kind of goes through this at some point. I know I did watching the the television series on Tarrage. Everyone kind of dreams of being an agent. That seems like the dream job growing up. You lived it. Tell me about getting into the agency business. How did you get into it? Total accident, Chris.

I'm a student at grad school in Boston, getting an MBA at Harvard. And at the end of the first year, there's a class called Starting New Ventures, which was about entrepreneurs. The setting at the Harvard Business School is an amphitheater type look with about 75 students in the class.

And every night, you get a case that you read study, go into the next day's class to discuss. And at the end of every case is, okay, here's the situation where the entrepreneur was at x point in time. What would you do from here? So reading about the case, I'm obviously enthused sports. Wow, you can actually make a living in sports. obviously enthused sports. Wow, you can actually make a living in sports. So we go in and Mark McCormick, who's the founder of IMG, which is really the start of sports management as we know it today, is there in class.

And the professor has the normal discussion among students. But the fun thing is at the end of about 45 minutes, he calls McCormick up to the front and says, okay, Mark, tell us what happened from this point in the case and what did you do right? What did you do wrong? How are you fascinating kind of way to learn? I didn't care about any of that. I just want to go meet this guy and try to get a job. So I knew right away when I read the case the night before, like you said, Ontario wasn't around in my day, but we had the same feelings.

So I went up and tried to talk to him, but there were six other guys in line ahead of me, which maybe gave you the idea that my chances weren't great. But he did, gave me his cards, said, write me a letter, whatever. I did that. He came back the next year, my second year, when I was about to get my degree,

and took part in the same class again. Before I went, I was in touch with this secretary and I said, I see going to interview me, what are we going to do? And she said, yeah, your interview will be in the car on the way to the airport. And that's the way McCormick was. He just like one thing to the next, to the next, to the next. Got in the car with him, drove out to Logan Airport first light, and giving an idea how long ago this was in the car,

he says to me, oh, and he's six foot five. He's a big guy and I have this little run down, Chevy, whatever it was, used car at the time, and his knees are up to his chest in the car, right? So I'm thinking, oh my God, this is never gonna work. He's talking to me and he pulls out his three by five cards, which he always kept in his sport coat. And he had this thick pack of cards,

which I went on to learn. He had a card for each, you know, top executive in the company with notes on it all the time. I said, what we were all doing it. Anyway, so he says to me, by the way, what's the starting salary for Harvard Business School graduates this year? And this is 1972. Everybody hang on to your hats. $14,000 a year, sir. Pause. We'll be going south from there, he said. I took that as a positive sign. And then

as we get to the airport, I miss the turnoff. I miss the exit to American Airlines. And he's always on a tight schedule. And he had told me that he was, we didn't have a lot of time, it was life. Now I got to drive all the way around the circle at Logan Airport for another 10 minutes to get back to the American Airlines ramp. And as I drop him off in the car, I think, just that one goodbye, you know, there's no chance he hires a guy that can't find the right exit ramp.

Long story short, I go back to campus and I remember walking through the library and this is an hour or so after the class that he did taking part in. And there were five or six other students writing him letters, after which I thought again, no chance. One thing led to another, all those other people took other jobs, and I got hired as his administrative assistant. Now I wasn't hired as an agent yet. I just went to work for him,

and this was his way of teaching people in the business in those days, to just do projects for him. It was really a staff job. It wasn't an agent job at all. And then about six months after I came on board, one of the key guys that was working in the golf division representing clients left. And he said, hey, he was, you know,

you play golf in college. I know you thought, well, golf, you like golf. Would you be interested? And I said, you can, sure. So that was kind of a long-winded explanation. No, I wanted to start with McCormick anyways, because I don't feel like we've ever totally dove into him on this podcast in any way, and the who better to discuss

that with somebody than with somebody who knew him intimately and was hired by him. So, well, for the listeners that maybe aren't familiar with the origin story of how McCormick even got into the agency business, I'm wondering if you could kind of give us a rundown of what that story is and what he was like to work with and how the vision for agency in general was formed in the golf world and developed. You bet. Mark was a fine golfer himself, grew up in Chicago.

Only child, he went to Princeton initially. And I never really heard why, but he left after a couple years there and finished college at William & Mary at Fine School in Virginia. And he's playing on the William & Mary golf team, and one of the teams they play is Wake Forest. This is in the 50s. Now he wasn't playing number one on the William & Mary team. Arnold Palmer was playing number one for Wake Forest,

but that's how they first met. And nothing particularly happened. There are college kids. Arnold wasn't an pro yet, et cetera. They go their own ways. So Mark takes a job with a law firm in Cleveland. He wanted to be in Chicago, where he was from his wife, where some a little town called Lyma, Ohio, in the northwestern part of the state,

and they literally flipped a coin. And he interviewed with a bunch of Chicago law firms and a bunch of Cleveland law firms and Cleveland came up. So he took a job at a firm in Cleveland, no longer exists, and he's a lawyer. And he's working there as a, you know, nascent lawyer, but he's also playing in some golf tournaments. He qualified for the US Open. I want to say twice it might only have been once and he qualified for the US Amateur a couple of times. So at that point,

Palmer had turned pro. We're not talking about late 50s. Of course, he won his first Masters in 58. So I don't know where in that in that spectrum it was. But when Mark is out playing in the US Open one year, Palmer, who's already turned pro, and some other people came to Mark in the locker room. You can believe it and said, Hey, Mark, you're a lawyer. I don't have any idea. Would you just take a look at this Wilson's boarding good contract for me? Because I don't have a clue. There were no teams of advisors.

There were no agents as we know them today. Nothing of the sort. These are pro athletes kind of on their own. Maybe they had a hometown friend that was trying to help them and stuff. So the more Mark heard about this, he got this from two or three different players, he started thinking, wow, this is crazy.

These people need help. So out of that sort of process, really luck, I guess you could say, one day ended up going to Palmer and said, hey, why don't we make a relationship here? You play golf, don't worry about this other stuff. Let me give you advice and consent on that and see what happens. And he started a little business on the side

while he's still working at the law firm with another guy. And they started booking exhibitions, which were big in those days. You say exhibition today to a young Gulf Probe, they have no idea what you're talking about. But in those days, as you probably know, Chris, they go around the country playing at the Toledo Country Club,

and two with pros or four pros would come. And it was a big deal. All the members came out, sometimes people from the town came and so forth. So that's really how we got into it. Palmer of course exploded on the scene late 50s, 1960 wins the Masters again. And pretty soon, Mark realized this was a real full time

opportunity, not just a part-time thing while he's at the law firm. And he established a company that eventually, few years later became international management. Because is it fair to say at that time period that the business of golf or I should say the business around golf hadn't really started yet? I mean, generically speaking, nothing that would be recognizable to the terms, you know, that it is today. But even then it wasn't, you know, golf on television wasn't really a thing. It was, it was evolving right around that time period.

I think 56, if I want to say right, was the first masters telecast or something like that. It seems like it was almost like the, the McCormick and Palmer together invented the marketing side of professional golf. Is that fair to say? Would you, would you say very much so. I'll give you, I'll give you a interesting story. In those days, one of the things that Palmer

in the early going had Mark look at was his contract with Wilson's sporting goods. Wilson's sporting goods. Now Palmer's a big time star at this point, late 50s, early 60s, had a lifetime contract with Arnold Palmer, where his rights to clubs, balls, golf bags were held in perpetuity by Wilson's sporting goods.

And he was paying paid $5,000 a year. I mean, you tell that to people today that, yeah, come on, sure, tell me another one. But that's how far, if the pendulum has swung too far now, Chris, you know, how things are in life, they go from one to the, if the pendulum now is so far the other way that agents are running the business and players are telling owners, they're not going to play unless they're traded and all this sort of stuff. Think

back to this, where an Arnold Palmer, unknowingly signed a Wilson contract, he was really happy. 5,000 a year. I had no idea what he'd given away. That's, yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. Whatever time we're going to talk today, I know is not enough time to get all of the stories

and timeline wise about the agency world. And it's fascinating to me, right? Especially in the professional golf is currently undergoing some changing tides, if you will, and how money all factors into all this and deals is extremely, extremely important. But by the way, just on that same score, in those days, the goal of a touring pro, and you know this, I'm sure, from reading about people like Claude Harmon. The goal was to play well enough on the tour. There was no money per se that you could make a livelihood out of. The goal was to play so well that you could get a club job at a wing foot,

or a or a oakmont, or a Olympic club. That was what the pros were striving for. And people say, wait, what? I mean, somebody just finished 19th yesterday and made $110,000. I mean, guys went their whole careers in the 60s, late 50s and 60s, and didn't make 200,000. So the opportunity was right for a McCormick to come along. He just happened to be the guy. He wasn't the first. There was a guy named Fred Corcoran, who lived actually on the grounds of Wingsford, his house overlooks some whole. And he represented Sam Sneed and Ted Williams. So he was represented, was kind of a word nobody used back then, but he was a guy. He wasn't a lawyer, but he was a guy, he wasn't a lawyer,

but he was advising them. And there may have been a couple of other guys around too. But what happened was historically that made McCormick and international management go crazy so fast, was in terms of growth, Palmer, Gary Player came along and in whatever that was, late 50s as well. Player went to Palmer and said, look, I got some business things going. What do you think? Well, you ought to talk to Mark.

And then Bingo, 1960 Jack Nicholas, or sorry, 62, he turned pro. And Nicholas also, because there was nobody else around, signed with McCormick. So here's a guy who's a lawyer doing this part time. And about three years later, he has the big three that weren't quite the big three then, but they were on their way to being. And boom, sort of professional golf management took off. I was just saying on their way to being in part thanks to him. I mean, the whole thing is kind of taking... When you really drill down to it, the ability to get a golf ball in

a hole is not that interesting, right? But building around the like building a whole marketing and endorsement element around the sport and marketability of players is like where the interest comes from. Right? I don't know if I'm saying that very well, but I don't want to call it hype. Maybe it is hype. Like it takes someone or an organization of some kind to build a structure around all this to make it appealing to people. And it's shaped the professional golf world as we know it. I just find this time period super fascinating in that regard.

Absolutely. And McCormack would be the first to tell you. And he did. It was complete, you know, figured out as you go along. He didn't know, he'd never you go along. He didn't know, he'd never run a business, he's a lawyer for crying out loud. And endorsements, you know, licensing agreements as opposed to straight endorsements, television shows that he started to put together, he was really fumbling his way along, but he had the trust, he had the trust of these three guys

at the beginning and and just worked his butt off, you know, and it all just snowballs in there. So, all right, you have, and I believe you said, an administrative assistant job with IMG, listen, we are gonna build up to this and we're gonna get there for you signing Tiger Woods. I'm guessing there's maybe something that happens in between that, what's the next step up

from administrative assistant to becoming an agent, how did that work? Well, when he told me that this guy had left the company, I hadn't even met him. He left right when I joined. And a couple of months later, he said, do you want to start doing this? I went out on the tour, I went to Napa,

my first tournament, I'll never forget. And I just started working the tour. And at that stage, they had clients like Bob Charles, Tony Jacqueline, Nicholas was just in the process of separating and going his own way with a bunch of guys and Columbus that were friends of his. But we still had Palmer and player and a handful of other young pros and so out there I go. So kind of a fast forward between

the time I went out there and Tiger Woods, which was about 20 years, I didn't even think about this till the other day. When we were getting ready to do this podcast, I signed and managed six number one golfers, which the enormity of which really hit me, I'd never thought of it that way. Now, there was no world ranking at the time, but sort of in order, they were Tom Watson in 73 Nancy Lopez in 1976, in 1976, Greg Norman in 82, David Duval in 94 and then Tiger in 96. So I wasn't managing all of them at the same time because various things happen like Watson decided his wife actually decided that she wanted something for her brother, Tom's brother in law to do. So they kind of learned from me and from IMG for a while then they left, which happens. But a lot of stuff happened in there. And again, I was finding my way. You know, McCormick's just a go out on the tour. I said, well, where's the handbook?

You know, what am I supposed to do? You'll figure it out. And that's kind of the way he was. I mean, with people. It's like you either sink or swim on your own. And I mean, he was always available. If you had a question, you'll get me wrong. But he was traveling all the time.

He was rarely in Cleveland. So when I was in Cleveland, I couldn't walk into his office and say, what the hell do I do about this? You know, but it was a real ride. Let me tell you, it's about almost 30 years. Well, how do you, what's your sales pitch, right? I mean, you don't manage six number one players

without having something that separates you from a million other people that are coming up to them, trying to get a piece of their pie or sell them something or tell them lies or whatever you have to do. How did you end up with these people? What was your advantage? Well, the biggest advantage of course, Chris, was the track record of IMG,

what we'd done, particularly with superstars, and what we'd done with players on their way to being superstars, and we were the largest, and we were the most worldwide. We had offices all over the world at that stage, and that's in and of itself a wonderful sales pitch. The flip side of that of course is always the people that come along and say hey Curtis, what the hell do you want to be with

those guys for? They got Palmer, player, they get Tony Jack, they got a you know come with me, you'll be my main guy, my main concentration. I'll put all my energies into you to which my only response. And I guess it was persuasive to some people. I would say Curtis, if you had a serious medical problem and a surgeon in Denver was the best guy in the world. And you went to see him and you found out he had 100 clients. Would that stop you from having that guy operate on you?

And the same, if you had a legal problem, don't you want the very best? So it's a powerful argument against us as I describe it at the beginning, you're too large, you know, I'll get lost, you know, how am I going to be important to you guys? You have, and by that stage, we had tennis players and we had a whole television operation. But, and trust me, Chris, not everybody listened to my counter.

There are a lot of guys that I didn't say to everybody. Well, let's just say there's a lot of the research I did for this, you know, shows the ups and downs of these relationships, almost none of them last for a extremely long period of time. Is that fair to say? What we would always say in the agent business is a client sooner or later, and it doesn't matter

the achievements, the accomplishments, the contracts, the endorsements that you've lined up, sooner or later are going to say, what have you done for me lately? And that's something you're always sensitive to and always aware of, cognizant of, but it's just human nature. And you'd say, wait, wait, hey Greg, what about the multi million dollar deal with Reebok where you're making three times when anybody else is an apparel? What about the deal was falling?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, great. But what have you done for me lately? Well, it's also just in reading about some of the quotes after you had split with Greg Norman too. It didn't sound like he was in a huge hurry to give anyone at you or anyone at IMG a lot of credit for a lot of those deals saying something along the lines of, you know,

anybody could have done that or I could have done that myself. That sounds like something that is set at the end of a lot of relationships. Yeah, well that in that case is, you know, and everybody's different. He is a as a serious Ego problem and let's face it. You don't have a big ego. You do not get to be number one in the world in tennis golf You know acting music whatever The people that are normal human beings Who who achieve those sorts of things without being kind of ego maniacal are

few and far between. And I'll tell you a couple in a minute if you're interested. Sure. But let's do it right now, forget. The two most down to earth true superstars that I ever dealt with. And one was just a friend because the head of our hockey division was was his agent. And I got to know him. and that's Wayne Gretzky. And the other who's a great friend of mine to this day,

and I actually did some endorsements for, is Jim Nance of CVS, because we had broadcasts and clients also. They are as true blue and as normal and as Chris Solomon, or Hughes, Norton, or whatever, if you want to say, as the day is long, unaffected by success. And I attribute both sort of looking back on it, not playing psychiatrists here to strong family values in both their cases. That's been my experience with Jim Nance.

I don't know what I've met Wayne Gretski a couple of times, but I don't know him very well. But man, Nance is, I feel like that guy treats his role in sports history with the utmost seriousness. I mean, that's the best way in terms of he knows he's a huge sports fan and appreciates the moments and knowing that he's the one that kind of is responsible for documenting it. He takes it as ser, you know, he takes, you know, Tiger winning the Masters as serious as Luke list winning the farmers, you know, as far as the dedication to his craft. And Chris, he's genuinely kind and nice to everybody. Yeah. A little thing you'll notice, almost every telecast in the course of a weekend, he will say something nice about one of CBS's camera men or one of CBS's guys in the truck, not the director, you know, three or four slots down the line. He's that way to everybody. And he means it, you know, he just the totality of

what it takes to produce a great broadcast isn't lost on him. It's not because I Jim Nancy here, it's because of the team. And it's just wonderful. Yeah, I mean, that's that's saying a lot for the the personalities that you've met over the years that those two stick out that much off the top of your head. But so is it fair to say that Norman would be on the opposite of the spectrum on that one? Well, I mean, I think it is. Yeah, I mean, he's he's gone through a lot of stuff and we've all followed it since. I mean, he's he's just convinced that he's a business

czar. There was a tycoon in business, and he kind of knows it all. It was a great exchange when he first was on his own. I got the second hand from the guy that ran our operation in Australia, but the big Australian business magnate named Kerry Packer ran the biggest broadcasting syndicate

in the country of Australia, very wealthy, successful guy, and he was a very blunt and to the point individual. And Greg got to be friends with him, and one day Greg goes into Kerry's office, they're sitting there talking, so the story goes, and Greg's talking about all the businesses that he's gonna set up and how he's gonna staff them all and do this and do that and there was a pause and Kerry Packer putting his feet up on his desk, which he'd like to do, lean back in his chair and supposedly said, Norman, if you want to be a businessman, you gotta wear a fucking suit. Which was again, that's the distinction between you're a great golfer or you're a great basketball player.

Hard enough to do that at the top of your craft all the time. Don't try to do, the thing that comes over a lot of them, Chris, quite honestly, is when you're so successful in one sphere of life and, and this is a big hand, you are most often surrounded by friends and associates who tell you everything you say and believe

is right on and true. You get to thinking, I'm as good a business man as I am a golfer. Or I'm as good a musician. I can be, you know, I'm LeBron James, I can go into music or whatever the situation is. And I always used to tell my clients the one thing I would tell them on a regular basis.

And since I got fired by both Norman and Tiger after 12 years, maybe this war a little thin, I said to myself, because I sense this, you can see it all the time with friends of theirs and their hometowns, or I once a week, you've got to tell your big clients that they're absolutely foolish. And unless you can do that, there's nobody that brings frequently the wives will do that, but not always. And you have to make sure there's some perspective here, because you get all this success at the top of the food chain. And you lose it.

A quick break here to check in with our friends at original penguin. I tell you guys every time I mention them that I wear their stuff every single day, I'm wearing two pieces of their clothing right now, the sweat pants and the lightweight hoodie. You can go to their website. They got a great end of season sale going on at original penguin.com. You can get leaf print hoodies, tonal flora print shirts. They got what looks like the whole TC collection going right there on the homepage at originalpenguin.com. The fleece joggers are incredible, so comfortable to wear in the winter, wear them around the house. They got short sleeve linen shirts, they got pants,

jeans, denim, boxers, whatever you could possibly imagine. They got golf shirts, stuff you can wear on the golf course, straight to the bar afterwards. The main thing I love about their offerings is the fact that you can wear it on the golf course if you want or you can wear it out for a normal night. All kinds of sweaters, half-sips, pull-overs, whatever you could possibly imagine, original penguin, I've never regretted getting a piece of clothing from them. They got great slim-fit, stretched chino pants that are fantastic on the golf course. Their shorts are what I'm wearing and pretty much every video. I think I've said enough original penguin.com for the clothes that you see us wearing.

And all of our videos are a great partner of ours. Really thankful for their sponsorship of this show. Now back to Hughes Norton. You said it way better than I could. And what we're sensing among some people in professional golf of, you know, well, I've done this, this, and this for so many years and everyone's, you know, kissed my ass everywhere. I've gone like, how could I be wrong about this? And oh my gosh, you just, if you spend enough time, you know,

around people that are yes men or are telling you exactly what you want to hear, your perspective on the world is bound to change no matter what. And yeah, so tell us about, I don't know, if we skip right to the end of Norman, but it sounded like, you know, he was, he wanted to take a lot of credit for deals that you guys had helped him with or what happened there with, you know, with co-loving. It was Cobra back in the day. I, you know, there's various reports about love to hear your side of it. Well, you can get a sense for when relationships start to sour. I guess I'm an expert on that face on my track record, but, you know, one time at Reebok, Reebok, the chairman of Reebok in those days

are a guy named Paul Fireman, very difficult guy, very egocentric as well, and we're up there for a meeting on some style issues and Normans line and stuff, and all of a sudden I see the Greg and firemen are having a private meeting. And that's very often the kiss of death. So that's when you kind of know things are going downhill. Cobra. That's too long a story to go into, but basically Tom Pro who's an Australian great guy, Rand Cobra and had a guy who was running the business side of it who didn't like agency general and I guess particularly didn't like me and so then they started doing it.

Let's make this deal ourselves. And by the way, that's always out there, no matter what your relationship is with the client. There are people who will, and Nike did this with Tiger to their everlasting shame. They, not to jump ahead, but long after the process was established between the relationship with Tiger and me and his dad toward the end, I'd been to Nike 10 times trying to figure out what's a fair deal for this kid. You know, if and when he turns pro, just general discussion is nothing specific.

At the very 11th hour they sent gentlemen directly who I'd never met from within Nike to Tiger's house. Hey, let's just do this deal with us. You don't need to use nor do you know anybody in between. And that's, that's when a relationship is tested. And two, is everlasting credit for a words call me, told me what had happened. And he said that he had told this guy from Nike, hey, go back and tell Phil Knight,

you gotta trust somebody and we trust you. Wow. That's, I mean, that doesn't surprise me that there's, you know, that people, listen, I'll be lying if I said, I didn't surprise me that there's, you know, that people listen, I'll be lying if I said I didn't try to cut agents out of deals every now and then when I'm trying to arrange interviews or something like that, sometimes they make your life harder, harder. By the way, I'm I'm through talking to you. We talked to my agent. Okay. Well, yeah, I think the stakes are maybe a little bit higher when you're talking about dollar sign

deals that are as big as as big as what you were doing. So if we are skipping ahead to Tiger, then when was the first time you heard of Tiger Woods, what what did you heard? When did the pursuit, I guess, begin for for IM, we had a team of people that were always looking at young promising golfers, boys and girls, young men, young women. You know, that's what you do. It's you have no idea, you know, that Tom Watson, for example, was a third team all American. Okay. So where is the writing on the wall that that was the guy that we should somebody should sign that was going to be a superstar.

So you never know. So we're just checking things out and you know Tiger was rolling along winning the junior world in San Diego year after year, whatever the age seven, age eight, or nine wherever they started. And he was like any other prospect we were looking at. I always had in the back of my mind, I guess I'm a racist today, if somebody hears this, I thought they would be a great, not good, great African-American golfer. And this kid had all the markings up.

So he's high on my list, as were a bunch of other guys that nobody's ever heard of today. I'll never forget the story, by the way, just to illustrate this. Bob Rossberg, who was a client of ours, great guy, very few people remember him today, was an ABC commentator, great player in his own light, won the PGA championship,

and lost, I digress here, don't mean to. Bob Rossberg, one of the great putters in the history of golf, lost the US open in 1969 at Champions in Houston to a guy that was a terrible putter and fabulous tea degree, but couldn't put at all, orville Moody. And Rossberg had a three foot put on 18 to tie Moody and go into a playoff. And the best putter in the world misses the three-footer, so the worst parter in the world wins the USO. But I digress, Rossburg's working for ABC.

He's the course reporter. I think he might have been the first on-course reporter for golf in those days. Chris Shankill and Dave Mar in the booth. The only people that can relate to this, Chris, are people about 30 years older than you, okay? But trust me, so anyway, they're covering the US Amateur. It's at Riviera.

Rosberg calls me on Saturday and says, I don't often do this use, but I just watched a kid today. He's the best young golfer I've ever seen. And of course, it was a guy that's long since forgotten. This is probably 1976 in there, Bill Sander, S-A-N-D-E-R, from Seattle, Washington. Chris, he never went past about the 14th hole in a match that week. Blue everybody away.

So of course, with that recommendation, Bob surely knows, right? We signed Bill Sanders in and up advancing him hundreds of thousands of dollars because his family had no money. And that's something that frequently we did, if anybody has any interest, that you help a young guy get started and then he pays you back out of future earnings or endorsements. No interest, just part of what IMG is a big company was able to do. Bill Sandler needless to say, no one's ever heard of him. Had a very short and for IMG, unprofitable career as a professional golfer. God bless him.

I have no idea where he is today. I hope he's in Seattle having the time of his life. So where were we? Tiger Woods is on my list. And I'm going out to LA for something else, a meeting, a couple meetings somewhere. And there were three or four of us at IMG who were out there together.

We had a, I think we were, we might have met with Toyota. So I don't remember. I looked up Tiger Woods. I knew where he was from in California. I looked it up in the phone book, called his house a week before. Earl answers. I explained who I was,

introduce myself. I said, listen, I'm going to be out there, can I combine, say, oh, sure. And I'll never forget these guys, we were all in the car together, a limo or something, because we'd been at the meeting together. And they dropped me off, because they were on their way to the airport. They dropped me off. We pull up the Tigers house in the street and as I'm getting out of the car, these guys know

he was Wait a minute. You're going to see a 12-year-old now and This was very common in tennis Chris. I mean you had to start with tennis players at least that young and tennis Chris. I mean, you had to start with tennis players at least that young and they were just laughing up. Warriors like, hey, good luck. You know, you need a, you're going to babysit from tonight. What you know, I'll never forget that was so funny. So that was it. I went in. Tiger wasn't there. I sit and sat for an hour and talked to Earl and Tita. And at the very end, and Tita, and at the very end, just an introductory meeting, Tiger came in, he came in from school, walked in, said hello, they took me back to Tiger's room

and they showed what every, not every, but a lot of parents have on his wall, you know, marking how tall he was at each birthday with a pencil on the door or on the wall so we looked at that. And then Tiger said, okay, nice to meet you. See you and I looked out the window and I can still see him got on his bike and rode away. So that was my intro to Tiger Woods.

Well, it's it didn't end up being though, just, you know, the first, first guy in the door is who is who gets to represent him. How do you go about, how do you go about the ultimate strategy you get to for which was controversial? I think it's fair to say and how you were you know how you went through Earl or what your strategy was. Just tell us about that. How you end up with the strategy that you end up at. Okay. So Earl was traveling everywhere with Tiger in those days to play junior tournaments and then to play amateur tournaments. And Earl was a retired Green Beret colonel. He did two tours

in Vietnam. Everybody knows a story. So he was on a pension and he'd also been working for, I want to say general dynamics, but that's not it. It was another manufacturing company with a big base in LA, but he had retired from them as well. And let's face it, you know, two air fairs to New Orleans and hotel for a week and stuff, you know, was very expensive for, for Ireland as family. Earl never said to me, oh my God, I don't have any money. Anything of the sort. I mentioned before how we would advance

bill standards of the world money when they turn pro et such. You can't do that with an amateur obviously. And I started thinking myself, you know, Earl is, we don't, our team of agents looking at prospects. We really don't go on the amateur circuit much at all. We kind of scout him as they first turn pro and get out there. Earl is out there and he would always tell me about, he was great friends with the Keeney

family. I don't know if you remember Hank Keeney and Kelly Keeney. Kelly was a real favorite of Tiger and Earl. Stay with great friends. So I one day with nothing else to do, I guess, so by that one true, I had too much to do. Started thinking, wow, this is like a win-win. If we could figure out a way to compensate Earl, so he'd have to exhaust his hard earned retirement money. And at the same time, get a sort of a scouting look at other players, that would be awesome. So, talk about it with Mark. He had a very good relationship with the guy who was the head of the USGA at that time, Sandy Tatum and Mark went to Sandy and said, look, hypothetically, if a company like ours employed the father of a

prospective golfer client, is that just no way is that something that could fly? And Tatum ended up coming back. He was a lawyer too. is that something that could fly and Tate amended up coming back, he was the lawyer too. And he said, look Mark, as long as there's no quid pro quo, that it's very crystal clear that there is no, okay, we're doing this so that when you turn pro, you will sign with us. That was okay. And nobody believes it to this day,

but Earl was a very honorable guy. We laid this out for him. And I said, Earl, there is nothing. I mean, there can't be any quid pro quo here, you know, and we're taking a risk. Obviously, you could at the end of three or four years of this, say I'm going with somebody else, but we think it's important. And very useful for you invaluable. So we did it. And I still have somewhere in a musty 30 year old file press, the yellow pages that Earl would do. Now listen kids out there that never have to sign your, do anything but sign your name or write. Earl Woods was old school beautiful penmanship. Absolutely flowing cursing. And there's pages and pages of evaluations

of young kids, Kelly, Katie, and a lot of girls. Because you know, boys and girls were at the tournaments where Earl was. And I kidded Earl later, a couple of years after Tiger turned pro, I said, Earl, you realize you were worth a shit at all, it was a scout. Everybody you thought was good and terrible. Yeah, a lot of laughs over that.

But so it was a risk for us, Chris. I thought it was pretty creative. That wasn't the reason a lot of people have scribe, oh, that's why I signed with IMG. It really wasn't the reason at all. We had a relationship for years before that. And I like to think of it. It was just maybe another reason for him

to see us as the place where his son should go. Well, you answered like 18 of my questions within that. It's about Earl as a scout and everything. I love to. I've seen there's a couple of those you can find on the internet of those update reports. I've seen the one from Kelly Keeney.

You're right. The pen's the penmanship there. It's kind of remarkable. But it was the way to Tiger through Earl at this time period. Because I don't know the story, but if I'm piecing it together, or at least reading some theories out there, it was that you were Earl's guy.

And then when Tiger took more of his control, maybe more of a control of his own affairs, that's when he fired you, is that, am I on to something with that? Did you view the way to Tiger Woods as being through Earl? That may have been it down the road. Remember, there was a 30 year age gap between Tiger and me. And Earl and I were much closer in age.

So I think maybe I gravitated more toward dad in the early days than I did the 13 year olds-old's writing a spike out of the driveway. It's funny, the dynamic of the family, everybody has kind of backwards. Early, there's gruff, tough, green beret, kernel, Vietnam veteran, you know, kick tigers, but his mom was really the tough ass in the family. I mean, she put up with absolutely nothing. She used to tell Tiger, you come home with anything but aids, your clubs are in the garage.

You're not playing stuff like that. And of course, he became a great student and went to Stanford and did did did great there. I'm not saying that's mom's the reason why, but she was many times, not all the time, but many times she was the behind the scenes factor in certain decisions. In terms of Tiger, what I think happened, I never received an answer, Chris. And if you want to look at the long line of individuals and Tiger's life who he's fired from his girlfriend in the early days, never spoke to again, his sports psychologist for years, who I got to know in the early years, Jay Brunza never heard from again. The lawyer that I negotiated, Tiger's representation contract with IMG with,

that Earl appointed, great guy from Hartford named John Merchant, fluff cow and Steve Williams, you know, wherever down the line, it's one and done for whatever reason, I don't know if you got that from his mom or his dad or whatever, you're gone and you're never, it's like you never existed. And I don't know to this day really, if you said give me the reason, the reason that he fired you.

You know they set up a bunch of stuff, you know, he uses to concern with the money. I'll never forget the day it came out that I'd been fired. The aforementioned Wayne Gretsky and actually Jim Nance called me that same day just to sort of underline the point. I said about both those guys. Wayne called me and he was literally screaming down the phone. To concern with the money, what the hell did they hire you for? Are you out of your mind? So I can't answer a kiss to this day and it's a terrible thing not to be able to answer.

And I kind of had the same thing with McCormick. You know, McCormick shortly thereafter fired me out of the blue and never really gave me a reason. And as I think I shared with you before, I didn't think I was any use to IMG anymore, but insisted on a strict I am G anymore, but insisted on a strict set of handcuffs, 10 year, no comp, you know, non-compagreement with me. So we don't want you around here anymore, but we sure don't want you working for anybody else. So I've never really understood or dealt with both, I guess, I've dealt with them, but I've never really,

I mean, I'd much rather know more about both of those situations. Tiger doesn't speak to me anymore, it never really, I'd much rather know more about both of those situations. Tiger doesn't speak to me anymore, it never will. And Mark died. So if we're on the shrinks couch, I guess I'm telling you that maybe something I'd like to know more about. Yeah, it's weird, you know, in a business that is rather cut throat. You're also, if you could tell me better than than I could guess, but it seems like you're at least responsible for, you know, part of Tiger Woods is professional development, right? He's 20 years old when he turns professional. What did you see? What

was he like as a 20 year old? Did you, from a maturity standpoint, from, you know, just in general, what's your reaction when I say, what was Tiger Woods like when he was 20 years old? And where did your job begin and end with him? Very young, very immature, nice kid, great sense of humor, enjoyed being around him. The thing I dealt with, I think most successfully, and it was really hard at the beginning was telling people like Phil Knight or Wally Euhein of Tidalist that this kid who make no mistake because amateur, what's the right word?

You know, never to be equaled. Three US juniors and three US Amateurs, right in a row. Are you kidding me? But something funny happened, Chris. He got toward the end, like in his second and third US amateur. He started getting sponsors exemptions. He played the L.A. open a couple times. He played a whole bunch of tournaments as an amateur. Guess what? He never made a cut. And the world was saying, wait a second, is this kid a match player? And I got this from Nike, less so from Wallik, as Wallik was much more into golf, and Nike was just kind of stumbling into it.

But what are you talking about? You're giving us numbers five times what Norman and Faldo, who are the top earners in those days are making, you know, wish the proof. But the fact that, you know, I was able to persevere with that and for whatever reasons, probably a lot of luck. You know, my job, I thought, and I told her, old, anti-grantists early on, with these not because of me so much, I got a lot to do with this too, but because of what you've done in golf, we can set you up here that you are set financially for a live and a tiger good to care less about that age 20.

You know, he's excited about going out and playing professional golf. But the whole point was for me to make that because because there was pressure on Tiger having missed the cut in eight or 10 of these pro tournaments. Wow, when I get out there, what if it doesn't work, what if it, what if it, what if I fail, not that he ever had those thoughts, but financially he knew it would never be an issue. And interestingly, all these contracts, and that was a real sticking point with both Nike and again, not so much titleists. They were both for five years, and there was no out. There was no, hey, if you miss five more cuts in the next six months,

we get reduced to X. It was guaranteed. And in those days, you know, today, it's hard to imagine with what these, what these guys are making now. But, you know, to have 60, 70 million banked over the first five years of career, and again, it was a large multiple of what everybody else was getting was insane. So I felt great. And a couple years later, I'm out of a job. That's where I, the story just like doesn't add up, you know, from where we're sitting of, if I have it right, five years, 43 million with Nike and reported five years, 20 million with titleists for the first, you know, with that first deal, which one, how do you get, how do you get to those numbers? How do you, you know, as you said, like now that maybe may not sound as crazy, but you're talking four or five X, some of the top earners in the game right now. One, how do you even reach that number? What makes Tiger that

much different? Back to what we're talking about earlier, like getting the ball in the hole is kind of is one thing. Yes, he's incredible at it. But as a marketing, you know, he's not five X better than the next guy in terms of shots. It takes him on there. How do you get to that? How do you convince someone that this person is worth that much? And why were you the guy that was able to get him the biggest deals out of anyone that was in a highly competitive market for him? Well, early on, Chris, I zeroed in on Nike because I knew the company. Our company did a lot of business with them across all sports.

I had been out there a number of times they were kind of just getting into golf, Curtis, Peter Jacobson. Believe it or not, this is a real trivia thing. Go back and look at the masters that Sevy lost when he hit it in the water on 15. I forget what year that was. It was in the 80s. 86, that's the jack year, right? Yeah, 86, I think you're right. And look at the first couple of days, he's wearing a Nike visor

because I'd get a one-off deal for a week. He wasn't a client, but he was a friend of mine. And so we did, and it was a double swoosh. It was a swoosh underneath another swoosh, which Nike's never done. It was totally goofy. And I think on Sunday, he didn't wear it. He wore another one, which I told him for years afterward was why he lost the master from that.

But anyway, Nike was at a very interesting historical point, Chris. They superstars were their bread and butter. They specialized in the top of the charts on whatever sport it was. Michael Jordan, his career was winding down. This is mid-90s. Andre Agassi was kind of winding down. And they were going into golf.

And a couple years before I thought, wow, this is an open check know, an open-check book type of company. We knew what they paid. They are a great company, you know, they make wonderful apparel. They involve their star athletes from day one in the style and design part of it, which might not appeal to a young target woods, but as he went along it probably would. which might not appeal to a young target would, but as he went along it probably would. So one thing led to another, and I just had in my mind,

I knew what the best guys, because why? Because I represented Greg, and he was the number one earner in terms of charisma and achievement and whatever. And we also are London guys representing Nick Fowler. So I knew what all the numbers were. I mean, I was kind of fully aware of that.

And I just had the idea in my mind if you don't ask for it, you don't get it. And I'll never forget there was a huge internal thing at Nike, which I learned about later. And then maybe that's why Phil Knight sent that guy down to Tiger's house to try to persuade Earl to deal directly with him. But I knew that they were getting in the golf and it was a real dice roll for them to, you know, put big money on an unproven kid. And they fought it and they fought it and they fought it in the end. We got the number that I was looking for. And rumor had it that six months later, Phil Knight was bragging to his buddies. Phil Knight all of a sudden he couldn't spell golf when we started and then he started coming

to all these tournaments and walking around. And he said to all his friends, man, we got the greatest deal sign in this kid. You can't believe how good we are. Oh gosh, yeah, what an amazing time period. I know I've seen a picture of you. I believe it's after Tiger wins the Masters with his mom with a cake.

And was it a house in Augusta? Is that sound right? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. That was a great one. And that night, you know, he wins. We go through all the thing. You go to the dinner where all the members are sitting

as the champion. So late Sunday night, we get back to the house. And there's a bunch of friends of girls there. And I don't know who it was all there, probably eight or 10 people. And all of a sudden Tyga would disappear. He's like, where's Tyga? And his mom went looking for him

and she came back and she wiggled her finger at me. She said, come here, come here. Looked, walked into his bedroom, opened the door. He had his green jacket still on. And he was kind into his bedroom, opened the door. He had his green jacket still on, and he was kind of hugging the trophy. He was sound asleep. Great, great memory.

Never forget that. What else sticks out in terms of, you know, great memories during your time with Tiger? And I'm just wondering too, if you felt like you were, obviously from an athlete standpoint, you know, he achieved things that we could not have ever imagined, you know, a golfer achieving, but did you feel like you were dealing with a, with a, a savant for a lack of better term? You know, was he able to kind of communicate with you on a human level?

I wonder what your experience is like in that regard. Yeah, he was a great kid. He's a really nice person and he has a great sense of humor and he loved telling dirty jokes and, you know, stuff as a young kid that I'll never forget, just goofy memory when you asked. We moved him to Florida from California immediately because of tax savings and stuff. And we set him up at Iowa Worth, which was a place where we had some pretty good connections.

So anyway, we're down there and he's on the range. And he was hitting these, you know, he'd get there and he'd hit a big, I was just, you know, I'm hitting Boston, just the two of us there. And he hit a, just for fun, he'd hit a gigantic slice with like a seven iron. And then next while he hit a huge hook huge hook, it hooks 30 yards. And I'm a terrible golfer, but I'm trying. And I said, Tiger, how do you do that? He goes, I don't know,

you just think, Cook. You're not helping me at all here. But that really is a subon. You know, he, I mean, just the whole thing watching him develop. And in those days, another thing I, I think Chris was as big a contribution as the financial, certainly more important to Tiger in those days was the whole setup with Bucharma, indelible memory for me. He won the Masters. Not a week later, a couple days later, we'd all left Augusta.

He called me and said, can you get me the tape of the weekend? I said, sure. And we call CBS and we got it. And I was at his house a couple days later and he's watching it. He's watching it over and over. They'd be a couple of holes.

He'd go by and he'd go, God, that terrible swing. Look at that. And he just went on, you know, three holes later. Oh my God, I can't believe I had a shot that bad. I said, Tiger, if memory serves me, you won by 12 shots. I don't know what are you talking about. He said, I got to change my swing.

I think about this, the acumen, the whatever you want to call it to realize this is not going to work. So he kind of said, give me some thoughts on that. And we had also put butch with gray, a couple of years before. And that relationship in both cases actually, I'm a firm believer that the best golf either of those superstars ever played was with Bush Harman. Now Hank Hayney will argue that and he has a good a good argument, you know, I think he won six majors with Hank and Hank changed him from butch but was it Tiger or the instructor? You know we'll never really know what would Tiger have done

without Bush Harman or and or Hank Hay Annie. I don't know you but no Harmon was great for Tiger in terms of taking a really wild powerful Swing with a short game that nobody could touch all the way through his amateur days and refining it to Wherever it was it ended up before they split. Oh, butchers on that list too, people that got fired by Tyler.

Right. Well, it's crazy because he was right about the swing though. He was not, how many people at age 21 can win the Masters by 12 shots and can like honestly say like yeah look that was a peak week but I want consistency and I need to redo this to get more consistent like that is that no one else does that no one else has that acumen and don't forget he'd won Las Vegas the fall before and then he'd won the tournament of champions in January I mean there's a guy's it's working this is working you know if it ain't broke don't fix it right. So but he

and I sort of had that conversation I was by recall is it was sure we want to you know you do him pretty well here. Yep no question. And he even go into it Chris saying I'm gonna change everything. He just said I really need he had had an instructor you know as a kid growing up Rudy I'm blanking on his name in Southern Cal and he had helped them all along and then it's Stanford. He kind of, I think, made his own way, but Rudy was still close, so he really needed a, you know, legit full time instructor. The question was always going to be who it was. So, Rudy Durand was the name. Very good. Durand Durand. Yeah. I don't know how to ask this question, but what he, what did in your sense, in your experience with Tiger,

what made him tick? What is it? What is Tiger all about? You know, I think it is, you know, it's a question I asked myself about almost all professional athletes in some way. Like, what is it you're about? What do you want? How would you answer that? What made Tiger tick? Just wanted to beat everybody's ass in anything ping pong, hoops out in the dry, you know, in the driveway, golf, little contests on the range, putting contests, he just burned to compete and win, you know, add to that incredible talent. That's a pretty tough, tough thing to be. If you were still Tiger's agent in 2009 when his life gets flipped upside down, how would you, how would you have handled that with, with sponsors or, you know, new partners or old partners are, you know, he's getting dropped left and right. Well, what would your life have been like during that time period? Pretty hectic. I didn't think that was particularly well handled, but, you know, easy for me to say,

I'm the armchair quarterback at that stage. It's kind of something that agents don't deal with normally. And it's, I guess more and more today with all the, you know, all the embarrassing things that happen in all sports that we see daily these days But it's that's no fun. That's that's really That's that's a tough one What in one of the articles I'd found you know just talking about you guys the the break up the split what not it According to a CNN SI report it said Norton had over committed tiger and business deals

and Earl Woods said, Norton was only interested in the almighty dollar. What, you touched on the dollar thing already, but over committing tiger and business deals. Why, does that hold water that claim? Absolutely false. I mean, everything that we ever did, I ever did with any client that I managed.

The person has to sign off on. I don't have power of attorney. We never had it. Mark never believed in it. It's stupid. All it does is get you in trouble. So anything that a client does, from Arnold Palmer, to beginning on down, was their choice.

Our job was to present opportunities to the individual who hired us to enhance their financial well-being through endorsements, licensing, appearances, ownership of situations, whatever it is, and look, Tiger, there's multiple companies here that want to do X, or there's a couple of companies that want to do Y, or you can the Australia and open for $400,000 or you can go to Japan for $300,000. Let's take that as an example. So Tiger or the player typically says, or what do you think? And I would say in that particular example You make a hundred000 more in Australia, but Japan's

far more valuable, because there's lots more opportunities for off-course income there in terms of endorsements or whatever the case may be. It's a golf mad society. Australia is too, but it's tiny. You know, the future revenue that you would make from the Australian continent will pale besides that in Japan. Is it more fun to go to Australia? Sure, they speak English.

They love Americans and vice versa. Japan's a tough place to go. It really isn't any fun. It's an hour and a half to the golf course every day and back, et cetera, et cetera. This is kind hour and a half to the golf course every day and back, etc etc. This is kind of an inside on how the conversation would go. If Tiger said, fuck it, I want to go to Australia. It's more fun. Perfect. Let's go.

But there's an example Chris of The money and again if you're me or if you're I.n.g. and this is why I.M.G. is particularly valuable, as large as we were and it's successful, there are commission 20% or whatever it is on that extra 100,000 in that example between Australia and Japan is meaningless. It's meaningless. The future, you know, it's the long term of how we tried to think for superstars. And in that instance, Japan's far more valuable. At 200,000, it would be more valuable. But back to your question, I can't say Tiger, you're going to Japan, get on the plane. It's not how it works.

Did I've never really gotten this? I always struggled to kind of marry the two here, because I don't get the sense that Tiger is driven, especially by money, yet at the same time, he's one of the, he's the high as earning golfer of all time. And seems to have been had no problems taking advantage of his extreme marketability. Did you get that sense from Tiger? Did he, does he care about money? Did he care about money?

Did that evolve at all during your time together? What's your take on that? I always used to kid him. I say, you're the cheapest son of a bitch. I've ever met in my life. Oh, wait, check that. There's one cheaper. He go, what? You're dead. Now he wasn't just, look, it was almost like in the early days, Chris, remember, I wasn't there too long after, you know, fire at the end of 98. So it was the masters. I mean, it was like fire at the end of 98, so it was the masters. I mean, it was like

Earl and people like his lawyer, John Merchard, were much more impressed, that's a wrong word. They understood the ramifications and the enormity and the specialness of those initial contracts I did. Protegra, it was like, you know, where do I sign that? That's great. I gotta go get balls.

And that's, you'd expect that from a young guy. And that's, yeah, he seemed to have, you know, had his, his priority was playing the best golf, right? And even off course setup was going to, you know, streamline whatever allowed him to play his best golf. I hear Rory say a lot of the same things. And today's day and age yet that doesn't, that doesn't, I guess, how does that differ from a lot of athletes that you have worked with?

They're all different. I mean, it is so hard to generalize. A lot of it is their background, you know, if you that differ from a lot of athletes that you have worked with? They're all different. I mean, it is so hard to generalize. A lot of it is their background, you know, if you came from a well-to-do situation versus a relatively versus not, that can have a too-pronged effect as how you value financial stuff. Curtis, to his credit, was always willing and able. You know, he wanted to perhaps he had a, you know, better realization that this can all end tomorrow, you know, but he wanted to get set up at a certain financial level where just crazy not that it's his alone, but if your tax free income in a certain year was X, wouldn't that be a wonderful situation to have as you went the rest of your life?

You know, so those kind of things, did Tiger ever have specific goals like that? Not a chance, but it all varied. You know, Greg really loved money, loved it. Couldn't wait to let you know, or not me in those days, but friends of his or fellow pros. Greg used to go into the locker room. This is how funny things change. He used to go into the locker room and say, talk to players and some guy he talked to and he'd say, wait, wait, you're not with IMG?

And the guy go, no, and Greg would say, I guess you don't like money. I mean, we can laugh about, you know, the exultimately splitting, but you were together, what, 11 years, is that sound right with Norman? Yeah, yeah, it was 11 years, 82 to 93. And what kind of contract, so what kind of deals, you know,

what are the, for people that aren't familiar myself included for, what were the big deals that you and Norman worked on together? Reebok was huge and huge. And Nike wasn't into golf that, so we didn't have that leverage one company against another. But that was, I mean, he was really a big deal and he looked great in their stuff.

And some unknown, I've forgotten, not unknown, but I've forgotten the person's name at Reebok came up with the shark logo, which is, you know, became a multi-colored logo, if you recall, on all kinds of different colors. It was fabulous. And I think Reebok paid him $5,000, you know, no, no, really see it. And that think Reebok paid him $5,000, you know, no, no, no,

really see it. And that's where that's a $5 million logo. Anyway, you know, Spalding was a difficult situation. That's what led to Cobra. Interesting story was Spalding. Greg was tearing up the world of golf and we got down. His contract was coming up. We got right down to the final kind of mile. And I think, if I recall correctly, I'm pretty sure it was the first million dollar a year equipment deal, which mine boggling today, the 30th leading money winner is multiple millions. But that was a real breakthrough. And we got to the end. And I'll never forget the president of spawning,

bought George Dickerman was his name. And he said, in the very last minute, he said, can't do it. It's a judge. What are you talking about this for months? I can't be in a position of paying a spallling athlete more than I as CEO in making, quote. And that actually led to Cobra, which was a fabulous deal for Greg.

And he ended up with an ownership stake in Cobra and made 40 million. Oh gosh. So it's funny how things kind of happen for a reason. Maybe I don't know. I don't think so, but that worked out pretty well. And so like a, he said, you know, I read an article that said that he said that you advised to him against investing in a percentage of Cobra, which I do not I do not imagine that you would agree with. That is brutally unfair. It's complete opposite revisionist history, Chris. A wonderful thing. I think we can do a whole nother podcast about that guy, but I do got to get one more story out of you

before we let you go here, which is, you have accomplished one of the rarest feats in golf history, I think, which is playing three particular golf courses in one day and doesn't seem geographically possible. I want you to tell us the story of those three golf courses. I take zero credit for this George Pepper, who for decades ran golf magazine on the editorial side PEP are wonderful guy one of my great friends throughout the sports management era was a big proponent find golf for himself was a big proponent of against slow play he thought it was wrecking the game. And of course, at every

point in time, certainly in my 30 or 40 years around golf, this conversation has come up. People are playing too slow. It's going to be the re-nation of the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So George came up with this idea. Let's play St. Andrews, Wingfoot, and Pebble Beach in the same day. I said George that's great how we can do that. Well in those days Chris there was something called the Concord which ran between New York and London. I think New York in Paris too. All the pros going to the British open when the Concord was running would get on board and turn a seven-hour flight to London into three hours.

So, Pepper said, I know how we're going to do this. Here's what we're going to do. The Gritty Shopeland was at Royal Burkedale, and we were all going to be there. All of us being, he enlisted me. I was last pick, I'm sure. Bobby Clampett was another, you talk about people, you know, Phil Sandertypes types obviously Bobby accomplished a lot more Bobby Clampett was

Tiger Woods in the late late 70s early 80s there was nobody better and a wonderful person besides and it just all came down to an unfortunate situation we can do a show on that British show, he was leading by five shots after 36 holes, hit it in a pot bunker in the fifth hole the third day, took three to get out. Anyway, so we're at the Bobby was a, I'd done a relationship between golf magazine and Bobby Clampett, he was a playing editor

as they called it in those days, did articles about instruction, et cetera. So George Pepper, Bobby Clampett, the best golf photographer in the days, did articles about instruction, etc. So George Pepper, Bobby Klamppett, the best golf photographer in the world, a guy named Brian Morgan, we had to have a photographer, right? And me, say, George laid it all out, here's what we're going to do. British Open and Sunday, Sunday night, we're getting a flight to St. Andrews, private jet, we're spending the night at the old course hotel. We're taking off at 4.30 in the morning.

Pitch dark. Thank God for the widest fairway in the history of golf. The first hole at St. Andrews, we played in two and a half hours, rushed to another private jet down to Burkedale, where all the pros were getting on the Concord Monday morning. I'll never forget where the last aboard to be getting on. We're walking past Palmer, Ray Floyd, Tom Watson, they're all sitting there waiting for us so that you take off. Flute in New York,

95 degrees. I'll never forget. We go to Wingfoot, played there in two hours and 45 minutes. Interestingly enough, never sprinted, never ran. We just walked quickly and when you got to your ball, you hit it. Of course, the course was clear in front of us. People were out there watching.

Well, there was a qualifier going on at that point. Wasn't there, you guys ran them and played through them? We had to tee off on 10. So they worked just around the qualifying, whatever it was, met golf, association, qualified. Finish, jumped in the shower, got a private jet to Pebble Beach, where Bobby was from, interestingly, Grapen Carmill. And they had shut the golf course. Now, you know how much it wasn't 600 a tea time like it is now, but it was a lot of money. And Pebble sort of an honor to Bobby shut the place down. There are a thousand people walking around, mostly friends of Bobby's from from there. And we played,

we had the leisurely, we knew we had it made, we played Pebble in a leisurely three hours and five if we played Pebble in a leisurely three hours and five hours. It's just like unbelievable. And the greatest thing was, there's a great, there's a famous picture of us on the 18th green at Pebble wiped out totally from whatever eight, nine time zones. And we had champagne, we just finished. And right after the photo was taken, Bobby, who was 21, turns to us and said,

anybody wanna go play some basketball at my house? anyone turns to us and said, anybody want to go play some basketball at my house? I said, Bobby, you see the, you see the, the lodge right over here, I'm going to bed in 10 minutes. Oh my gosh. Did it feel like all one day or did it feel like three days? It was really exhilarating, Chris. I mean, it was like, because it was so crazy what we were doing. And I really didn't get tired almost until it was over. But I'm sure we napped on the way to, you know, we had a bunch of flights and stuff, but going across that many time zones too is crazy, but it was, it's really fun

because I don't think anybody's ever done something that nutty and maybe that's my claim to fame and not Tiger and Greg and all of the other guys. Man, you got some great stories. I feel like we've only scratched the surface on this. And maybe that's my claim to fame and not Tiger and Greg and all the other guys. Man, you got some great stories. I feel like we've only scratched the surface on this. We may have to, if you're up for it, we may have to do this again in the future, but in the meantime, I am going to let you go and thank you for dedicated some time to tell in some some golf history stories. Man, this has been extremely insightful. I mean, really, really appreciate your insight and your willingness to share. So thank you very much, you.

Thank you, Chris, and Joy. It would love to come back. Cheers. Give it a big, right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most.

Better than most. Better than most.