Subpar - Golf Superagent Hughes Norton tells all on representing Tiger Woods and Greg Norman

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by golf Superagent Hughes Norton for an exclusive interview. The former agent to both Tiger Woods and Greg Norman talks the biggest differences between the two stars, how Tiger reacted to his initial Nike deal and who originally pitched the idea for what would eventually become LIV Golf. --Download the Fanatics Sportsbook today and use code SUBPAR and you will get $200 in Bonus Bets when you sign up and bet $20 or more. ⁠⁠https://joinfanatics.com/subpar⁠⁠ Must be 21+. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, Connecticut residents call [phone],  Massachusetts residents call (800)-327-5050, New York residents call (877) 8-HOPENY, Maryland residents visit ⁠⁠mdgamblinghelp.org⁠⁠.--Fanatics Fest hits NYC June 20–22—use code Subpar15 at ⁠⁠fanaticsfest.com⁠⁠ for 15% off up to 4 tickets.--Dial in your grip and lock in your swing with Golf Pride’s all-new ALIGN MAX grips. Featuring raised ridge tech for consistent hand placement and a more repeatable swing, ALIGN MAX gives you control where it counts.Get 20% off a full set (up to 13 swing grips + 1 putter grip) with code SUBPAR20 at ⁠⁠https://GolfPride.com⁠⁠ — now through August 31.--Head to shadyrays.com and use code SUBPAR for 35% off premium polarized sunglasses: https://shadyrays.com/collections/green-wolf--The road to opportunity is often the road overlooked. That’s why Enterprise Mobility offers new roads to help drive your business forward. With mobility solutions like fleet management, flexible truck rental, and an unmatched global network, they can help your business find the right solutions. Their mobility experts find smarter ways to scale your business, so you’re not just growing bigger—you’re getting better. Find your road at enterprisemobility.com--Warning: This product contains nicotine.  Nicotine is an additive chemical.  Underage sale prohibited.  Introducing Zone Nicotine Pouches - the perfect balance of unparalleled comfort - longer-lasting flavor - and nicotine that satisfies.  Whether you’re zoning in for an important putt or zoning out after a tough day at work, Zone gets you there faster and keeps you there longer.  Available in seven flavors and in six and nine milligram strengths.  Find Zone at ⁠zonepouches.com⁠ and retailers near you.  Own your zone with Zone Nicotine pouches. --Choose your style, pick your favorite Birdie Juice logo and shop from a line-up of top tier brands at ⁠⁠shop.golf.com⁠⁠ today!

All right, everyone, we got a very special U.S. Open recap heading your way on this week's subpar. But as always, this episode is brought to you by Fanatic Sportsbook. And great golf is coming, including some huge majors. And Fanatic Sportsbook has even more ways to get in on the action. The latest update? You can now parlay multiple players. Combine picks like the outright winner with top five, 10, or 20 finishes, whole scores, and even who makes the cut.

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Massachusetts, 800, 327, 50-50, New York, 878-8-Hop-NY, Maryland-D gambling help. org. All right, Salyze, just another victory for the subpar podcast, and this time a major. J.J. Spahn is your winner of the 125th U.S. Open at a brutal Oak Month, the only man to finish under par. How about it? That was a hell of a good open. I heard a lot of, like, people earlier in the week, like, this is boring, this isn't fun.

There's not a lot going on. I don't know. Like, we'll get into the course setup and stuff. I thought it was awesome. That's exactly what I want. One guy finished under par. That's, by the way, with a lot of rain coming on the weekend. I would have loved to have seen as a spectator what that would have looked like if it had stayed dry.

Well, they still might be playing because it would have been a mess, but I would have enjoyed every second of it. We get to, what, like four holes left? we got five guys tied for the lead. It was awesome. And JJ Spawn, man. Shout out to the rain for J.J. Spahn. Because he started off five over through six. Things were going fast.

Things weren't going his way. Full regroup. Wardrobe change, new shirt, comes out, played the best golf coming home. And honestly, I mean, I think he played the best golf all week. Minus that five, that six whole stretch starting off the final round. I mean, he was awesome. Pretty funny that Mother Nature played such a big role on Father's Day.

Ooh, nice. Just can't let us have a dad. Mother and Father there. But, man, you're right. Five over through six. And all of a sudden, a little timeout, hour and 40-something minutes. By the way, Tiger looked great during the weather delay. How many people woke up from their nap for like tigers in this?

Which just happened. Holy shit, he's leading. But yeah, the delay, JJ comes out. He said, you know, comes out on number nine. It's a seed right down the middle on a very difficult hole. And then off and running the putt at 12. The drive at 17. The putt at 18.

Just unbelievable. The two longest putts he's made all year on the back nine at the U.S. on Sunday to get it done. 40 feet on 12, which he hit like a three inch putt. That was unbelievable. That was the one that got the moat, like,

make you start believing, like, okay. And then 18, just 64 feet, two putts to win. How about one? Right in the middle. Place went absolutely berserk.

How about this from a day to golf? Okay. At 6.33 p.m. local time up there. He had a 1.8% chance to win. It's like the Mavericks winning the lottery. Yes.

At 8.05, when that put went in, obviously a hundred percent chance. So in a little, a little over an hour and a half. He went from 1.8% to a winner of the U.S. Open. Man, it was a...

I had no idea it was down that low. I felt like he had more than a 1% chance, I guess. He was 4% to play, I believe? Yeah, made some birds coming home. The drive on 17, I don't care what he does. The rest of his career, he might win four more majors, but he'll probably look back at that one. It's like, that's the best shot I've ever hit.

I mean, he started making puts. 18, they hit that drive under a press. Like, a bunch of guys. been bogeing 18. A bunch of guys that I'd bet on, by the way, seemed to be bogeing 18. I was like, this is not a layup par coming home. I'd know. Wet. He had some beautiful drive. Good second shot. A little left maybe of where he was looking. And shout out Victor Hovlin coming in there hitting it. Damn near, like the odds of that, on that green, they hit it a foot away from JJ's ball on damn near an identical line and letting

him watch it, runs it by a little bit. Jay J.J. said, I saw that, you know, took a little off of it, right in the gut. He deserved. some good breaks. He got some shit on the front. I don't care what you say. That's two shot swing. The ball was coming back. I think that's a tap in. And then hitting the rake on four, Gostom two. It just seemed like everything was fast and going wrong. Like that rain delay, man, he's going to look back on that.

I'd be like, that's the one that changes his career. Yeah, I mean, Adam Schreiber, his longtime swing coach. And then Josh Gregory, who he hired to help him with a short game just this week. But congratulations to both of them. They've done awesome work. He's always been a flusher. But the chip at the way he did is what really helped him. I know it's crazy to think he was, he shot 40 on the front nine,

and I believe it was 0 for six scrambling for the day and won the U.S. Open. Yeah. That's nuts. I mean, just we had Josh Gregory on our Sirius XM show earlier today, and it's like not even just getting the ball up and down at Oakbonne out of that stuff. It's just don't make the big number. Like, there's places you miss the green out there that you're just hoping not to two chip, as he referred.

We saw Sam Burns do it on 15 after a very questionable ruling, not to give him a drop out of a lot of water. Yeah. But we saw him come up short with that pitch shot, but JJ Spawn, man, just was cool, calm, and collected the whole day it looked like. And I know Adam and Josh both kind of got in his ass a little bit during the rain delay and said, hey, you're trying too hard, let's relax. You're playing the best golf of anyone out here.

Let's go out there and get this thing done. They said, if we would have told you on Monday, you'd be four back with nine holes to play at the U.S. Open, you'd have been to sign me up. Yeah. And, man, he went out there and just, he lit up that back nine to shoot 32 on that nine holes in those conditions, respect. Yeah, I mean, how could you not be trying too hard? I mean, his first time in that position.

Go look at his major championship finishes up to this point. There ain't a whole lot of yellow on that thing. In fact, there's zero. T23? I think 23 or 26 maybe. T23, I believe. His best ever. But you and I have talked about him a lot on this show.

I had him at a bet last week as a top 20. Not optimistic enough. Not optimistic enough. But we've seen it. We know what world class golf looks like. JJ for a long time. I'm like, man, this is it. Then finally the players, like we saw it.

He could, he is a. lip in from Roy McElroy on the 70-second hole the players away from being your players champion and U.S. Open champion and very much, if not leading the ballot for player of the year, he'd be right there. And now he's a slam dunk, writer cup. Yeah, he's number three on the U.S. point standings. He's going to be wearing the red, white, and blue, up at Bethpage.

So pumped for him, man. I played with him, I believe, in like 2012, he was still on the Canadian tour. And he was one of those guys that if you're high enough up on the Order of Merit over there, you get a spot in the Canadian Open. and I played with him on Sunday. I was like, damn, this kid's pretty good. Why are you out here on the mini tours right now?

Always loved his swing. I tell you all the time, like him and Harris English are probably my two favorite moves through the golf ball. Throw Ludwig Oberberg up there as well as far as their rotation through the golf ball. He just makes it look so simple. Like JJ's golf swing,

not much can go wrong, in my opinion. If his short game's on, he's going to be up there. And I'm not saying this is going to open the floodgates. I'm not going to use that at all. This is awesome. A guy like JJ spawned a journeyman from San Diego State is now a major champion. And I think he's starting to believe what we have said, how good he is,

and that he does belong up there on major championship leaderboards and does belong contending on the PGA tour most weeks. I think the players did that for him. I don't think, I think without that experience, he probably doesn't win this past week. And, I mean, he's been so good for so long. I don't, like, there's no floodgates. Like, oh, he's going to go win four more majors.

But, like, I expect JJ Spawn to be around for a long time. Like, years to come, I think he'll be relevant. like a winner on the PGA tour. The only thing that was not up to snuff in his game was that short game. I mean, quick work with Josh Gregory. It looks good. We'll see what that does going forward. But he just,

his bad, we talk about it all the time. Like, he's just so good Tita Green. It's like the volatility of his game shouldn't really be all that high. He had a tough week at Memorial leading up this. I played with him last week. And I was talking about Okman's,

what do you think? He's like, I don't know, dude. He's like, I'm going to get my ass kicked. I don't know if I'll break 80. I think he said the same to you. I think he said it to multiple people. I was like, dude, you just have to hit fairways and go, like, that's what you do.

That's your strength. Like, you know, the more they put the emphasis on knitting the fairway, hit it on the green, I think the more that favors, he was like, yeah, we'll see. His trainer, Carson Kipp, who works with Sarah Schmelsland, obviously. Smelly. Yeah, but Sarah, shout out to her. Her wins coming soon, too, by the way. But they text me on Sunday, and they're like, this is unbelievable.

He was home last week, just bitching the whole time about how he's hitting it. I'm not going to break Haiti at Oakmont. Now his life just completely changed. Yeah. It happens fast. It honestly, I think it's kind of a similar trajectory to just a couple years ago where Windham won, you know, at Quill Hall of. No wonder, he hadn't really done much up to that point.

Wins that, that gives him the confidence. Then he goes out and wins the U.S. Open. I know JJ didn't get it done at the players, but going toe to toe with Rory against that field, the best field in golf, that I think gave him the belief that he could do it at a U.S. Open. And, man, there ain't no, there's no flukes around Oakmont. You don't get away with anything. No, the rough five and a half inches long. If it would have been fairway running 20, 30 yards, like when Anheel won, I mean, we're talking,

Justin Thomas tweeted seven to ten over would have probably won. You know, I like there being a premium on driving accuracy. Now, when you hit it two inches off the fairway and you're chopping it down the hill like JJ did off the first hole and thank God it was downhill because it ran all the way up there, but it punished you. I mean, you couldn't fake it around there. You look at a lot of the big names that missed the cut. Most of them are smashers and they're not the most accurate.

other than SEP Straca out of the top 10 guys in the world, which I was shocked that he didn't play better. But you had to hit fairways out there, and if you didn't, you were punished. I mean, it wasn't trying to get it up around the green. It was just trying to get it back on the fairway. Scotty Schaeffler on the 72nd hole, who sneaky, he was like, he's going to birdie the last few holes and he's going to win the stand thing. It was right there.

It was like, crazier things have happened. But like that shot he hit on 18 out of the rough. I mean, he literally went dead sideways and swung as hard as he could to hit 40 yards. Yeah, and I personally loved it. We get it enough weeks a year where the, where the bombers have a huge advantage. You hit in the rough, who cares? You know, that's just the way they play.

Hit as hard as I can't go get it more or less, right? It's fun to have a week where, like, that doesn't matter as much. In a perfect world, I think, I would have a little bit of graduated rough because I think, especially when the fairways get firm and bouncy, you hit a good drive. If it scoots six inches, it just trickles into the rough. I'm like, should probably have a better opportunity to advance the ball than a guy that flew at 15 yards off the green.

But I don't care. I thought Oakmont did a great job. USGA did a good job, not pressing. any pins. Golf course is hard enough. I don't think they did it. I think they got, I want to say lucky, but rain helped because that thing could have become a runway out there.

It could have been out of control. But I love it. For one week a year, yeah, tough shit. Hit less glove, hit it in the fairway. Like, let's test all aspects of the game other than putting such an emphasis on one like we do all the time. Last time I checked, there's a reason they mow that grass so low. That's where you're trying to hit it.

So you can actually have control of the golf ball. It's called Fairway for a reason. Like we, you should have to try and hit those. I mean, when you hit it long and you hit it straight, you should get rewarded and not long and crooked. So I'm with you. I don't want to see these guys hacking it out every single week. But every once in a while, yeah, let's make it where the guys that have a little precision have a somewhat of it, maybe an advantage, or at least they can compete with these long guys.

Yeah, every other week, it's the other way around. And when I think of a U.S. Open, I think toughest test in golf. Like, that was the stereotypical U.S. Open in my mind. Have to hit fairways. Green's brutally hard. And it was even soft out there. but I was like, that's what I expect. And they moved the place around,

and like Pinehurst was a little different. Obviously, they're never going to have the huge rough and the things like that. But that's what I think of when I think of a U.S. Open. And I think they did a phenomenal job, and Oakmont was great. And congratulations to JJ Spahn. You're a U.S. Open champion.

You're a major winner. You'll always have that, and we're pumped for you over here at Subpar. Let's get zoned in Sleys with our good friends over at Zone, and we were zoned in, over at the sphere in Las Vegas. If you have not been to the sphere, let me tell you, you've got to make a trip. We went up there, saw Kenny Chesney on Wednesday night. That screen, I don't care what videos you've seen, it does not do it justice.

That place is, I feel like I've been to a few concerts in my day. I don't know if you can find a better venue than that right there. That's going to become, I think, for the performers, like, I want to do Madison Square Garden, or I want to do Grand Ole Opry. I want to do a sphere. Like, if you've ever been to an IMAX, it's like an IMAX, but 180 degrees around. looking up same thing i've never been to a concert where i watched the performer less than i did at the speed i was just watching the screen then they take on these rides and stuff so i have a good time yeah

trust me you got to go check it out kenny was phenomenal i know you probably already pre-ordered your tickets for back street boys don't say less they're coming next yeah right man that was awesome all right let's get to some gambling here sleaze okay awesome job picking j j j spahn for the top 20 my man zander shawfley missed a top 10 by shot. That was heartbreaking. I like that, but if you haven't downloaded the Fanatic Sportsbook app, make sure you do follow along with us because we're on to the Travelers Championship,

a signature event after just an ass whipping of a major sleaze. Yeah. Go ahead and saddle back up, guys. Don't love it. I hate it less than the week before a major championship. I think that's terrible. They can only lock in so many times. But yeah, having it the week after,

we'll go see who's got anything left in the tank. Maybe one of those weeks, like guys that played great last week, maybe you short them because they're gassed. Yeah, four days there, just getting your head kicked in. Hopefully the Hartford Heckler takes a week off. I was going to ask you, do we have eyeballs on this man? I've been looking. I'm waiting on somebody just randomly saying too.

Somebody's got to know this, dude. Like, they had to be there with him when he was like, oh, yeah, the guy that crush is cool. Well, as far as I know, pretty much everybody that's qualified is playing. I think Cory Conner is the only guy that he had to withdraw at the U.S. Open because of a bad risk. That killed my top Canadian bat, by the way. That was a little bit. He was like 15th. Yeah, that one stung.

So hopefully he gets well soon. But, all right, here's my pick this week. Go ahead. He had a very disappointing week last week. He's missed three cuts this year. Every time after he comes back after missed cut, his worst finish is T-13. So he bounces back. And this golf course is not long, and he's not the longest.

He's played phenomenal this year. He's plus 280 to top 10. Sep Strock is going to bounce back this week. There you go. No disagreement from me. Love Sep was so high on him last week. was shocked that he didn't play good. That is a perfect U.S. open setup for him.

All right, I'm going to go against everything I just said where you're short guys that played good last week and gave themselves a chance. But got a guy that's, dude, he's finally starting around into form. Talent-wise, he's a monster. Haven't quite had the results. I think most people expect from this guy,

but the last three weeks, he had a 25th, and then now he's got finished fourth and fourth last two weeks, including at Ogmont, where he was right there all the way up to the end. Cam Young, top 20, plus 165. Okay. Almost went with Harmon because

he didn't play his best was going to go the other way. He didn't have much stress on the weekend, probably just getting it around. But I'm going to go at camp. See if he can make a move here late in the year. Get up there. Right of a cup.

It's coming. His neck of the woods where he's from, too. The lights are going to be bright up there. Please. And right here. Oh, yeah. Got a little protection. You got a lot of shade.

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Eyes can wander in those bad boys too. I'm very excited for our guest this week. I had this gentleman reach out through a friend of mine and wanted to come on the show and I obviously learned a lot about him. We actually read a book for him. Look at us.

Look at us. Took me three months. If you haven't, please go order this book. It's called Rainmaker by Hughes Norton, who is a golf super agent, been in the business forever. It was Tiger Woods first agent, represented Greg Norman while he was over at IMG.

His story is fascinating. Here's Hughes Norton on Golf Subpar. Okay, we are very excited. to welcome on our guests today. He is one of the original super agents in the game of golf, representing Greg Norman, Tiger Woods, and a number of other world-class talents. Also, the author of Rainmaker,

which gives a very interesting look inside his storied career with IMG, a very fascinating read. Hughes Norton joins us. Hughes, thank you so much for the time. Hey, Cole. Pleasure to be here. Hey, Drew. Well, Hughes, I can tell you this.

The fact that you got us, too, to both read an entire book, we applaud you because we're not big readers down here. I think I've gone Rainmaker, Billy Walter's book, and Bringing Down the House. Those are my last three reads. That's nice. I knock out a few Dr. Seusses at night.

If I'm included in that trio, George and I are very honored. Yeah, shout out to George Pepper who wrote this wonderful book with you. But obviously, I mean, your story is just amazing, getting to represent some of the best in the game, including Tiger Woods and Greg Norman. But I want to know more about this book.

Like, what made you want to write this? Well, great question. You know, my ending came so suddenly and sort of semi-tragically, as you saw at the end of the book, you know, first fired by Tiger Woods and six months later by the only guy I'd ever worked for, Martin McCormick at IMG, that I really had a, you know, bad taste in my mouth, kind of bitter, kind of obviously upset, and really disappeared from the scene for years and decades, really. during that time from like 99 to well, 20, 22 or three, I would get two or three times a year, you know, golf magazine or ESPN or Golf Digest or guys writing books about Tiger or Greg would call me, get in touch and they say, hey, you know, I want to talk to you, tell us some stories from

the past. And I really never wanted to do that. I felt like I should just take the high road. Plus, like my heart wasn't in it. I still was kind of harboring resentment. meant, I guess, or just the way it all ended. Because I went from unbelievable success, as you saw, to just absolutely out the door. Thank you very much. So this persisted for a while. And finally, a kid that was in our business used to work at IMG and then left and founded his own firm and ended up joining Wasserman in the end, named Chris Mulhop, called me one day, he said, you know, it's a really cool podcast that you ought to go on. And being the dinosaur I am, I said, you know, what's that? Tell me, what's that? So he said, there's this guy, Chris Solomon at No Laying Up,

and he'd love to talk to you about your years at IMG. And I said, Chris, I don't want to do that. You know, same old reasons. He said, come on, it's been so long, just do it. So I did it. And Chris would ask all the different questions about Tiger and Greg and all my years at IMG. And it was kind of fun. And I stunned how many people you guys came up to me the next week or two. saying how they'd heard the podcast and how much they enjoyed it. And they were really unlikely people. If you'd asked me to make a list of who might have listened to it, I never would have put these people down.

And all of a sudden, I get a email from George Pepper, golf magazine's own George Pepper for 25 years, the editor-in-chief. And George and I hadn't correspondent or communicated in at least 10 years. And he said, Hughes, loved your podcast. Is it time we finally wrote that book? To which I responded, George, what book? It never even occurred to me. So one thing led to another.

He had a fabulous literary agent in New York. And we thought, well, maybe, you know, I still was sort of reluctant. And then I started thinking, you know, hey, I'm 75 years old. It's the 50th anniversary of me leaving IMG. joining IMG and the 25th anniversary of leaving. And if I don't do it now, when am I ever going to do it? Not that I had ever thought about doing a book. And I remembered something my dad said to me once.

He said, you know, if we don't memorialize our stories, they vanish. And I thought, you know, every time I'm with friends and things come up and I tell some stories, they say, oh, man, those are great. So that kind of pushed me over the edge. And George and I got to work. And believe me, guys, writing a book is hard work. And I had one of the great golf writers of the last 25 or 30 years in George Pepper.

But it was really 18 solid months of hard work. We got a nice advance from Simon & Schuster. And the rest is kind of history. We're glad you did it because there's some really cool, unique inside perspective from your time at IMG. And I guess we can just start at the beginning, I guess, if that's easiest. I mean, you're Yale guy, Harvard Business School.

You could have gone into any industry, I would imagine, with that resume. And you go into sports management. You meet a guy named Mark McCormick, the founder of IMG. Can you give some background? He played a huge role in your life, some background on who he is and how you kind of got connected with him initially. Yeah, I met him at Harvard Business School. It's the case method there.

You have a case about a different company, three different cases a night. And I'm there in my second year, and all of a sudden there's a case about sports. management. Now I got to rewind and set the scene here. If today the sports industry and the sports management industry and agency in general has completely overwhelmed professional sport and now amateur sport, it seems with college, back then it was really a nascent industry just beginning. So I'm reading this case about McCormick and IMG and how we started with Arnold Palmer and I'm thinking, wow, this is actually something you could do for a living. Anyway, Mark, was a lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio.

He was a good golfer himself. He won the Chicago School Boys Championship when he was in his teens. And he played some events. And meanwhile, practicing law in Cleveland. He plays the US Open once qualified. And he's in the locker room. And a couple guys come up to him, Billy Casper was one,

and says, Mark, hey, you're a lawyer, right? I've got this contract from Wilson Sporting Goes, I don't have a clue. You know, could you, would you mind taking a look at this? So that happened two or three times, and he's thinking to himself, hey, man, see, these guys need help. So he had met Arnold Palmer, Mark was at William and Mary, and Arnold played at Wake Forest. They didn't play each other, but when the teams played, the college teams played, they had met briefly. So they knew each other.

A few years goes by. Mark goes to law school, practices law in Cleveland. gets this ID in his head, starts booking exhibitions and special events for pros. And all of a sudden, Arnold, who is his friend and who he'd done some little deals for, takes off. If you guys recall, he wins the Masters in 58, wins again in 60, is overwhelmed with all this outside stuff coming to him. And he calls Mark one day and says, Mark, would you work with me? I'm not even sure he used the word represent.

He said, I need somebody to look at this outside stuff. My business affairs are just too overwhelming. I'm trying to play championship golf and I can't do it all. So that was the famous moment in the history of sports management guys when it's called the golden handshake. Arnold and Mark shook hands. And believe it or not, in a world of contracts and litigation and everything we face today, in the 45 years they were together, there was never anything written between Mark and just a handshake. That's crazy. And Mark,

Mark several times, you know, down the road said, Arnold, you know, we really need to get this formalized in writing. You never know what's going to happen. Arnold looked at Mark and said, why? You know, my words, my bond. Our handshake's good. I don't need to sign anything. So that was pretty cool. Yeah, that's just an unbelievable story that all those years they went on just a handshake. But it obviously, he takes you under his wing. You start working in the agent business end up running the golf division there at IMG. Can you just tell the people out there just some of the clients, obviously Tiger and Greg, but some of the other clients that you represented? Well, over the three decades, and I never even figured this out until I started

doing the book, believe it or not, never occurred to me. I signed, recruited and signed and managed myself six number one golfers. Wow. And sort of historically, they were Tom Watson. That was a very brief period of representation, as you guys saw in the book, thanks to his wife and his brother-in-law, who once the going got good, decided they wanted in on it and they wanted to do it themselves, which is fine, you know, that happens. But Tom Watson was the first, Nancy Lopez, Curtis Strange, David Duvall, Greg Norman, and Tiger Woods. In an agent's world, if you can represent a couple of number one players, I mean, you've had a career. and sometimes only one.

And through luck, opportunity, skill, hard work, whatever, I had those six guys over that nearly 30 years. And then, of course, our firm had all kinds of other top players. In Europe alone, our guys over there, John Simpson and his team, IM represented Sandy Lyle, Ian Woosnam, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langdon. That was just a succession of number one guys. So the firm was doing great and deserved its reputation. You know, Mark, just a little historical background.

After Arnold, a young South African golfer came along, then Gary Player, he hit the U.S. scene. He'd known Palmer. Arnold told about Mark. Gary was Mark's second client. And then Jack Nicholas in 1961, decided to turn pro. And there's that whole thing in the book, which is pretty cool, where Jack meets with I mean with Mark, and Jack says, you know, this is hard for people to comprehend in this multi-million dollar world.

But Jack says to Mark, you know, I'm kind of thinking of staying amateur. I've been selling life insurance. And I think if I could, you know, make $10,000 or $12,000 a year doing that and play amateur golf, I think it would be fine for my life. What do you think I could do? Mark went away and did some preparation, came back and said, well, you can make $100,000 or so when you turn pro, Jack. 100,000 in 1961 guys was, I don't know,

that is zero, maybe more. And of course, that led to Jack being client number three. So we, and then as the book traces, and this is what's fun about the book. You know, it's my story as an agent, but it's also a lot about Mark and about the formation of sports management, as you saw. And it's kind of been forgotten, you know, what this guy did.

And what he essentially decided, a critical point in the company history. He had Arnold, Gary, and Jack, and he said to himself, you know what, I love golf. I can have a very nice life representing these three superstars for the next 20, 25 years. I'll make a lot of money. Or I can take what I've learned with these guys in golf and transform it, take it to other sports, because he knew we're not even checking that tennis players were going through the same issues, team sport players, race car drivers, whatever, kind of needed help. And Mark had this drive inside to create a bigger and bigger company

with more and more and more employees. That's what really, that's what really drove him. And that became the history of IMG. Yeah, it's unbelievable. The number of clients through all the sports that he, that y'all represented over there. But one that I thought that jumped out. I always tell people, I just interrupt for a sec, and you tell people, IMG sports, and we said, well, we represented clients a pretty diverse lineup. And they said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, Derek Cheater and Serena Williams, sure. But we also represented Itshock Perlman, the greatest violinist in the world,

and Margaret Thatcher. And people say, whoa. And then I add a final client that IMG actually represented for a short period of time, the Pope. Yeah, that's a good one. That's nice. That's a tough sign. Who would have thought the Pope needed representation?

Not the Vatican, that's for sure. That's hilarious. Before we get back to our interview with Hughes Norton, a quick note from Golf Pride. If you care about putting and let's be real, we all do. You've got to try the new reverse taper putter grip from Golf Pride. I just swap mine out and right away you can feel how it helps square the face at impact. The larger lower hand design gives you way more control no matter how you grip it. It's a quick upgrade that actually makes a difference.

Go to GolfPride.com and use code subpar 20 for 20% off a full set up to 13 swing grips and one putter grip. Offer ends August 31st. Now back to Hughes. One I wanted to touch on that I thought was fascinating that I came across in the book was Colin Montgomery, who was actually trying to be get into the agency business, went out and played a pro-am, shot 29 at Turnberry, and everybody's like, hey, I think we need to be representing you. Fabulous story. I get this email. Nobody ever, you know, he was at Houston Baptist, actually. He came over to college in the States. None of us in those days tracked the few Europeans that came over, like so many of them now that, you know, Ludwig Oeberg and SEP Straca, go down the list.

But in those days, it was like, you know, no big deal. And I got this email from our London office saying there's this kid name from Scotland named Colin Montgomery. He's been in the States going to college. He'd like to come in and talk to you. He was about, you know, working as an agent at IMGS, I was always open and receptive to that. So one day, Colin Montgomery is in Hughes Norton's office, sitting on the other side of the table, being interviewed for a job as an agent. So we were prepared to go down that path, and so was Colin. And I said, look, what are you doing the next couple weeks? She said, I'm going back to England.

I said, well, look, all of our top golf people and management people happen to be at Turnbury next weekend for an event. would you kind of go up there and see them? Because I think the best thing for you would be to start in London and then maybe come over later once you've got a little agent training and work in the States for me. He said, yeah, sounds fine. So there was a mix-up and he didn't get there on time. So all the IMG guys go out and play the front nine at Turnbury, right? Colin shows up, borrowed somebody's clubs and shoes and shot 29 on the back nine at Turnbury, to which Ian Todd, who was our managing director, in London over drinks and dinner that night, took Colin aside, and he said, lad, I kind of think it would work out better for us to work for you than do you work for us? He was very impressed. That's awesome. And look at what happened. Colin wins, what was it, seven consecutive European Order of Merits and Hall of Fame career. It's funny how life goes.

Unbelievable. He could have been a hell of an agent. And Jack could have been a hell of an insurance salesman, too. What could have been? But you wrap so many great players, as you mentioned, you know, throughout your career, a bunch that you said prior to Greg Norman. I want to go to Norman for a minute because he's probably the first pro golfer I can think of, and you helped accomplish this, but with a global brand.

So when you court Norman, and he's different, I would assume, than a lot of the other guys out there, his ambitions fall outside of golf. How do you court him? Greg started out in Australia, young pro playing the circuit down there, made his way to Asia, and eventually to Europe.

By that time, he had signed, with another guy to represent him, an English guy, one-man show. And so there was not immediate success or immediate representation like there was with most of my other clients. So in those instances, you kind of just bide your time. I got to know, Greg, we hit it off his friends. I'd see him in the locker rooms and in tournaments. And one thing led to another. He was having problems with this guy who represented him.

He did some decent deals for him, but he completely mismanaged Greg's tax affairs in Australia. And if you're in Australia and playing in Asia and playing in Europe and with plans to go to America, you really need some sophisticated, you know, financial and tax advice. And this guy sort of dropped the ball in that. So our moment of opportunity came. And Greg at that point was just ready to come to America. And, you know, he's such a – people say to me all the time, what is it that – you're looking for. What is it? You know, what's the, what's the secret sauce? What's the, what's a

superstar client all about? And it's like one of those things. I can't really define it, but you know it when you see it. In Greg's case, you know, blonde, blue-eyed, you know, broad-shouldered, commands the room, great sense of humor, love the media and they loved him, you know, terrific talent. Jack Nicholas actually said, now this is in the, in the era of Persimmon heads, guys, okay? Jack Nicholas said Greg Norman was the longest, straightest driver of the golf ball he had ever seen. High praise indeed. And, of course, Greg, you know, was off and running and brought his skill to America and immediately achieved success on the U.S. tour. And the big year, of course, was 86 when he had the Saturday slam.

Remember, he led all four majors after 54 holes. I'm not sure that's been ever done by anyone. It's an interesting historical question, maybe way back somewhere. And he only converted one of those, of course. And people then, you know, he ended up winning only two majors. I joke now that the Liv Tour, right, that Greg fronted and promoted, L-I-V is Roman numerals for 54. And I joke now that if majors had been 54 holes instead of 72,

Greg would have seven instead of two. That explains it. It explains it. To give, not to give him credit and everything, but I will say this. Like, every time, you know, he went into those major championships, had a chance to win and didn't get it done. He always did face the media, though. And it seems like in today's day and age where we see a lot of guys that are ducking the media, not wanting to talk to him, refusing to talk to him.

Like, I will give him credit for that because after every tough loss, he was there and he answered every question. Great point, Cole. And so true. gives the guy high marks for that. He faced the music, the most painful of which, of course, was Augusta, which of all majors, even though he won the Open Championship twice, he wanted to win more than any other. And that thing with Faldo, you know, you blow a six-shot lead with 18 holes to go, and how crushing and devastating that loss was, he was right in there, you know, front

and center in the press room and answering every question. And the mark of a great sportsman, sorry, you've got to face the music when things don't go your way. and not just when, you know, you win the championship. Yeah, and his were some brutal losses. He had some dudes do some stuff on the 72nd hole or leading up to it. They were just, you just don't see it. It seemed to happen to him every single time.

But I'll tell you, he was something I found really interesting in the book was when Norman proposed initially the World Golf Tour, right? Not long after leaving IMG and it got shot down, which is now basically exactly what Liv is. That idea initially came from Mark McCormick, and Norman has played it off as his own, correct? Such a great point. And it's one of the revelations in the book.

People go, wow, I knew McCormick was brilliant and visionary, but this guy thought up the Liv Tour, and he did. He wrote a book that I think is out of print now, guys, but Mark wrote a book called Arnie Evolution of a Legend, which is about all the years with Arnold. He wrote it in 1966 or seven. So about the first seven or eight years that he represented him. stuff. And one of the things in the book is Mark saying, you know, I had this idea. And here it was.

We were going to get about 25 of the top players. And at that time, the PGA of America was at war with the players. And the players were unhappy with the way the PGA of America was running the tour. This is pre-Dien Beeman. This is pre-all the way the tour operates today. And so the guys were pretty receptive with this concept. And Mark went and sold it to the networks, sold it to sponsors. He had a 14 or 15 event tour with bigger prize money, with benefits like pensions and health care, which in those days no pro players had. And the whole thing was ready to roll. The only quick pro quo was you had to have Jack, Arnold, and Gary. Other than that, the networks and sponsors didn't care who was on the tour.

And Arnold shot it down. As he did, ironically, as you saw in the book, when Greg first proposed it in 1994 as his idea, idea. Arnold stood up at that player meeting out in California and said to the assembled group of players that Greg was pitching his World Tour to, hey guys, how many times do you think Jack and Gary and I were approached with stuff like this? He said, we always turned it down. Why? Because it would not be good for the fellas. That's how Arnold called the other guys on the tour, the fellas. And he said, you guys, he said, it's past my time. You guys do what you want. But as far as I'm concern, I want no part of this. And he stood up and walked out of the room. And of course,

Greg was crushed. And Arnold's, you know, aura and reputation was still such among the younger guys. This is 1994. They all voted and shot it down. Yeah. And I mean, now obviously come to present day a couple of years ago, he gets the money from Saudi, starts the live tour. You know, it is what it is. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Not a lot of people watch it. But one part in the book I want to go to because professional golf is in a very interesting time right now, whereas this year, you know, since the book was written, like ratings are up so far this year. But as of last year, they were down. It seemed like a lot of people were annoyed with the game. But I want to go back to your book here. It's on page 97 where I was talking about Dean Beeman and talking about

all the great work he did with the PGA tour as commissioner. And back in 1979, the ratings fell 10%. And they went out, hired a consulting firm. And basically in the book, it says, Dean Beeman's first move was to assign a consulting firm to gauge the public perception of professional golf, and the results were eye-opening. The fan base was small, with virtually no viewers under 18. Most concerning was the revelation that pro-golfers were perceived as selfish, aloof, and unappreciative of the big money they were making, and the tour itself lacked a positive brand identity. This was in 1979. Does that sound familiar at all? I'm just going to say, sound familiar. It's amazing. My jaw drops when I read that paragraph right there.

I was like, oh, my God. Like, this isn't anything new what we're dealing with. That's the other piece of the book that I think has made it popular and made a lot of people like it. You know, it's kind of three parts. It's my story as an agent. Pretty cool story. A lot of success, ultimate failure. It's McCormick, which we talked about, how this guy in Cleveland, Ohio, built the sports management business from nothing.

And there's that long segment cult that you just referred to about Dean Beeman. And even rereading it today, we wrote the damn thing. And when I reread those pages about Beeman, my mouth still drops open. This guy has sort of been forgotten. He was an absolute genius, every bit the extent that Mark was. And what he did for golf, you know, all that stuff that you're referring to right there in that segment of the book where he gets the tour out of New York and he gets the piece of property in Pontevider. And all the stuff with television, really absolutely brilliant.

And if you follow golf, you know, if you're a tour out of New York, and he gets the piece of property in Pontivira. And he gets the piece of golf, you know, If you're a modern-day golf fan, you should know that stuff. And it's great to bring it back to people's attention right now. Yeah, and CERClin, you're exactly right. It's funny reading that. It's like, man, that could have been written yesterday, you know, or last year, and it would still be true.

History has a strange way of repeating itself. But going back to Norman, just because, like, Norman and Tiger Command is such a big portion of your book, the kind of parallels I found there. Like, the endings with both of them, the split was so abrupt. Can you talk about what led to the split with Norman? and if you had any idea that was coming? Sure. And they're very different, really, in this sense. Greg was a client of mine and was with IMG for 11 years.

You know, interestingly, so was Jack. Jack left in early 72 after 11 years with Mark. Greg was a client for 11 years. And we talk a little bit in the book about how an agent's kind of dream is to get a superstar, but often, and it takes time, as in Greg's case, the superstar golfer decides, you know what, I've been around, I know how all this business works, I've sat in the meetings with Hughes, I've read the contracts, you know, I can do this on my own, and a lot of times, as you know, Colt, the big guys have egos. They don't get where they are without them,

and they start thinking that they're as good in the business realm or could be as they are hitting a with a stick. Okay? And that is a tragic mistake, which Jack has paid for dearly over the years. Not that Mark was the only guy he could have stayed with, but Jack's been in some real dicey business situations near bankruptcy a couple of times, as I think you guys know. But anyway, back to Greg and the difference with Tiger. So knowing that the superstar history, you know, Watson left us to do that on his own. Johnny Miller left his guy. Trevino left his original guy.

Sevy did it twice. Rory has done it twice. So that's kind of, you know, you're playing with fire, not all superstars are like Arnold and Gary and stay with IMG all their lives. So sure enough, after 11 years, Greg decides he wants to do it on his own. And sometimes it's, hey, look at the commissions I can save. I can save 20% of millions and millions and millions. millions of dollars. More often it's this ego. I want to have my own team. I want to be the chairman

of the board of Greg Norman Enterprises and that sort of thing. So that happened. He let me know and terminated us in Australia. That part's in the book. As much as that was a crushing moment for me that I really didn't see coming, and that's my bad that I didn't, I guess, that at least it was tolerable, at least he was loyal for that whole period of time and appreciated the work we had done. Whereas with Tiger, it was just complete 180. I mean, it's insanity.

We say in the book, no pro athlete, I still believe this, has ever, before he set foot on the field or hit a shot as a pro, ever had the amount of guaranteed income, guaranteed, that Tiger Woods. And that's not all there is to representing a player, but that's what he and his family hired me to do. And I really delivered in spades. And for him 24 months in to fire me over the phone is just still inexplicable. And I've never spoken to him since that moment. And he's never given me any response. And sadly, he does this with a lot of people in his life.

Obviously, we're going to get to Tiger because, I mean, he's obviously the big story here. But one last thing about Greg, I just want to ask about, because you obviously know him very well, spent a lot of time with him. Are you surprised at all with what he's doing now, how he did finally get this backing from Saudi, started this whole rival tour. And, you know, he says to grow the game, but in my opinion, it's hurt the game, if anything. Yeah, not surprising at all. he's always had this this need to be visible to be relevant to be front and center to be at the head of the head of the line and you know his playing career had come to an end and he's laundering around doing different stuff you know it's financially set obviously but he was he was you know designing golf courses and you know his rebock clothing brand kind of went in the tank which is sad because it was one of the great marks that we developed that shark logo multi-color um

in his other businesses, some of his wine business, I don't think did that well. But anyway, along comes this opportunity. And who better to brandish power and wield influence than Greg? The Saudis could never have found a better guy, who, by the way, was absolutely willing to take the slings and arrows and criticism. You know, some other players would not. Rory made a comment the other day. He said, he said, I'll give, I'll give Norman this. He's probably the only guy that could have you know, taken all the heat fronting the Saudi Arabian tour. And I think, I think he's, he's very right. So Greg's personality was always intertwined with that. And the Saudis found a perfect guy, in my opinion. Before we go to Tiger, which I think we'll get to after this,

just give me like, because we're talking about all this, Greg Norman with Liv, you know, the idea initially came from Mark McCormick. As you sit back and look at the state of golf currently, what's the end game? Where do you think this thing goes? Settlement, somehow. some way, and I think we're further apart than ever cold year with this and on top of it every day. But I mean, you've got the, by the way, it's exactly two years anniversary since that, you know, they called off the litigation three days ago, June 6th, and everybody thought maybe that would mean something was going to get done. And here we are 24 months later. It seems like both sides are more entrenched. You know, the PGA tour has gotten these guys strategic sports group,

these team sport owners to put a billion five up. How they're going to get that money back? I don't know. And I'm sort of wondering what that's all about, frankly. But the Liv Tour, you know, people say, God, they're losing, they've spent $5 billion on this thing in three years. How long can they keep this up? And the fact of the matter is their private investment fund, PIF, which not only is in golf,

but it's in tennis, it's in Premier League soccer, it's in Formula One racing, it's in cricket, it's in every other sport, is about $800, $900 billion. So let's see, if they spent $5 billion over three years, how long can they keep this up? Well, the answer to the question is probably 100 years, I don't know, which they won't. But I, for me, as a fan, apart from the business now, okay, for me, the only real guys that I miss are Rom, Dishambeau, and sadly to a lesser extent, Kepka. I mean, if you think Dustin Johnson's kind of doesn't seem like he cares much anymore, Cam Smith's gone totally in the tank, which really surprises me because he's so good. And a lot of these guys have kind of their games have gone south playing on the live tour.

But those are the three guys, if I'm the PGA tour, that I'm trying to figure out some way to get back. Now, it's been written about, and I don't know for sure, maybe you know better than I, that their contracts are up. that, you know, DeSambeau and Kepka's contracts, at least, are up at the end of 2026. Rom's deal was more recent, so it goes longer. He's kind of stuck. But if I'm the PGA tour and I can get those three guys back, I mean, do you really care about the others? I'm not sure I do.

Yeah, I'm interested to see, obviously, what happens. Obviously, in the business I'm in covering for CBS, covering the PGA tour, like, ratings are getting better now. People, I think, are finally past a lot of this. And they're like, look, I just want to watch golf. I agree, having those three back would be big, but, like, is it going to change the game? Like, I said this to somebody the other day. If you got ROM and Brooks Kepka back, is all of a sudden viewership going to go from

two and a half million to three and a half million? I don't think so. I don't think so either, but I do think Deschambe moves the needle. He does. For me now, as a thing, like only one other guy does, and that's Rory. Because they're both appealing off of the golf courts as well as on. They're both very thoughtful when they're interested. They're both fun to watch.

And those guys, you know, every sport, you name it, needs charismatic top players competing against each other more often than not. And right now, you know, with the two tours, it's sad. We've got, you know this quote, we've got four weeks a year, the majors, when they pretty much come together. And, you know, God help the Valero, Texas opens. Yeah. You know, I mean, I didn't mention Bryson in that group when I said who it will affect the numbers because he will. I mean, there's no doubt. What he's done in major championships, what he's done in YouTube,

like it's been great. It's been a total rebranding for him, and he's must-see TV now. So, yeah, the PJ tour would probably do a lot to get him back. Yep, agreed. And I think they could give a, you know what, about the rest of the guys. And the rest of the guys, having made their money on Liv, may not be all that, you know, crash out to come back. Do you think Ian Polter wants to come back and grind on the American tour?

I don't think so. So I think there's a way to, you know, make this work. I do have reservations about this, all this billion five that these supposedly sport, you know, smart team sport owners, the Fenway Group and the guy that owns the Falcons and the other people. I don't know what, I mean, what return are you going to get out of golf? Somebody pointed out that the real great thing that that pile of money could do, PGA America would probably, never say yes, but what do you guys think about this? You think about the PGA tour, right? They don't control anything in golf.

You have a body of rules-making officials in New Jersey and Scotland that write the rules of the game. You've got the Masters, which runs itself. The most important events are all under themselves, the USGA, the RNA, the British Open. The PGA of America, the tour should take that money, and they'd probably get a fast no, but either buy the PGA championship or the Ryder Cup, which is kind of the fifth major now, right, or both. I mean, I don't know what else this money can go to to get a return in golf. You know, the tour's up and running.

It's successful. Where does this go? Yeah, I have no idea. I mean, those business guys have obviously been very successful. I don't see them just putting money in to put money in. I think they definitely see a chance to return a profit. That's their goal. and they're going to do everything they can to do it.

I have no idea way above my pay grade, but I'm fascinated to see what happens. Some people have suggested that those guys, half the reason they agreed to put up this money, is getting close to the Saudis and doing some business with them on all kinds of other ventures. Interesting take.

Yep, that could be understanding. I just feel like two years in, we're further than ever from a deal. We never hear any information about it whatsoever, and I don't think anything happens until some of these contracts start to get close to running out, And then I think you'll start to see some scrambling because it's like, oh, if we're going to lose three of our biggest signes and they're going to be done and they want to go back to the PJ tour and the PJ tour says you're welcome.

It's like, where do we go from here? How do we replace those guys? And guys, I don't have a single friend who's a golf fan or a guy, person I play golf with or hang out with. Not a single person ever says to me, not once. Man, you see what happened on Live last week? Was that cool? Or how about Joaquin Neiman? He's going crazy on Live. nobody even knows they exist. Yeah, I mean, that's what you hear from a lot of people, is how do you watch?

Like, I watch everything. I definitely don't enjoy it. Like, I enjoy the PGA tour. Yeah, I totally understand why people don't enjoy watching it. But, hey, if it's your thing, if you're bringing in a younger audience, whatever, that's fine. You can watch it all you want. It's not for everyone, though. A quick break from our interview with Hughes Norton to bring you a note from Enterprise Mobility.

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But let's get to your biggest client of all time. Obviously, Mr. Eldrick Tiger Woods, who you met at a very young age. One thing I never knew was how you hired him as a scout over at IMG to help help afford, yeah, how you hired Earl, his father, to help out with some travel situations. He was scouting for you over there, which apparently he wasn't very good at being a scout, but he did raise one hell of a son. It's brilliant. Well, I kidded him afterwards.

You know, he would write these long-hand. on yellow pads and send them to me in the mail. There'd be five or six pages about the AJGA event in Phoenix or wherever it was. And every single person, like, for example, he was great friends with the Keeney family. So he knew Kelly, he knew Tripp, he knew Hank. So we'd write up these things and say, Kelly Keeney, man, she can't miss. Trip Keeney, even better, you've got to sign him. You know, I kidded him years later.

I said, Earl, you know, you were maybe the worst scout I've ever seen. for talent. You loved everybody. He laughed. He thought that was the funniest thing ever. But that was a brilliant idea. Whether that enabled us or me to sign Tiger, it certainly was a helpful factor because Earl retired from the military was spending a lot of money, which he can have a lot of, traveling around the country with Tiger, going to every single junior event, two airfares, hotel room, food, you know, 20, 25 times a year. So I had this brainstorm one day driving back from work, I thought, what if we hired Earl as our junior talent scout? Because we were doing a lousy job even then scouting college kids. We had nobody looking at the

kids, you know, the AJGA age. So I immediately dismissed it saying that'll never fly. The NCAA or USGA, I'll never buy that. But I ran it by McCormick. And he hit one of his many great things, McCormick, tough guy to work for for sure in many ways, which we talk about in the book. But he was always receptive to new ideas, and even if they sounded crazy. So he said, wow, that's pretty cool. Let me run that by Sandy Tatum, who then was the head of the USDA and was a friend of Marx. So I, again, thought I had no chance because of the commercial aspects, which the USDA hates. But Sandy, being a lawyer, came back and said, okay, here's the deal.

As long as there's no quid pro quo mark between you and the Woods family, meaning, we're hiring you as our junior talent scout, but wink, wink, nod, when you, you know, whether it's in writing or not, you agree to let IMG represent you when your son turns pro. That was, he says, as long as there's nothing of that ilk, he said, yeah, you can hire him. So we did, and he worked for us for two and a half years. And then when Tiger went to Stanford, we was, we knew we were going to run into NCAA stuff. So we stopped it. But it was very meaningful to Earl, and he really appreciated it.

And, you know, we paid him not that much money. It was then, but we paid off the expenses, plus I think we paid him 25 or maybe even more a thousand a year. And it really made the difference for his financial well-being. Again, I think my relationship was strong enough through other things that we did together over those years when he was an amateur that would have made, was that the determining factor, no. But that was one of my brilliant ideas that, that was one of my brilliant ideas that, that,

worked. I had a bunch of other ideas didn't work out so well. Kind of worked out well for a while. This one, we didn't have anybody that was out on the amateur tour recruiting and trying to sign college and amateur players. And at that stage, Vinnie Giles had come along and it set up a practice representing golfers, and he was signing them all because he got to know them at tournaments and became their friend, and they had, you know, trust in him and so on and so forth. before we could get to him. So I called, I looked around the landscape and I saw this young, good looking guy had just from the University of Florida had just surprisingly won the US amateur, Fred Riddley.

And I called him and said, Fred, you probably never thought about this, but when you get through with law school next year, would you consider working in sports management? And one of the things we'd like you to do, you can learn about the legal side of our sports management operation and you can play amateur golf and kind of recruit and get to know these young guys like at that time, Curtis Strange, etc. And Fred was overwhelmed, thought about it a while, came back, said, that is really cool. Big mistake I made, quote, and Drew, never start a young IMG employee, especially one from the South in Cleveland, Ohio, in February. Yeah, it's a tough sell. Yeah. That's a tough sell. And Fred and Betsy, Fred and Betsy were from Florida, and after two or three

years. He just felt he wanted to go do something else. But I mean, look at what he's done in his career. USGA president, chairman of Augusta National. And I like to kid him all the time. I say, Fred, never would have happened without that agent that sleazy agent training. He just kind of turns the other way and says you had to bring that up, right? That's beautiful. Yeah, it's done. It worked out all right for him. Yeah. I mean, between Fred Ridley, Colin Montgomery, I was being an agent, Jacksell and insurance. Like the whole landscape of golf has changed under the watch of IMG and the goings on there. Answer me this, since you brought up Earl Hine him as a recruiter or as a consultant, which was genius. But the first time you went to Cyprus, California, to meet Tiger Woods,

he was 13 years old. As a grown man who's represented a bunch of world number ones and things like that, what's it like flying across the country to go see a 13-year-old who you think's going to be great? But by the way, there's no guarantees that he's going to turn out. And I had never ever talked to a family or a kid that young before. And all my colleagues, and the golf department at IMG were giving me a hard time saying, oh, you know, are we tennis out here? Or because tennis players turn pro, and 14 sometimes. And I said, listen, I'm out in LA.

I can, you always do your homework, you know. A lot of stuff that I would research or sort of, you know, get ready for a future recruiting thing, don't work out. And a lot of kids that can't miss, do miss, because you well know, Cole, in this sport. But there I was, And interestingly, that chapter, it's called Finding Tiger, was the one when you write a book, I never knew this before, a publisher or your agent has to have three things. One is an introduction, one or two pages, what's this book going to be about?

Two, an outline, like is it going to be eight chapters, ten, they're not going to hold you to it, but just roughly. And the most important thing is a sample chapter. Simon and Schuster and all the other publishers we approach want to see, you can't blame them, what's the writing going to look like? So that was the chapter that you're referring to. It's chapter seven. And a lot of people have enjoyed that chapter when I walked up to the front door of a 13-year-old's house and said, here I am. Go win a bunch of majors for me, please. Unbelievable, obviously.

And everything led to you signing, Tiger Woods, when he turned pro, when he decided to leave Stanford. And obviously, like you said, the money that he got guaranteed up front was just absolutely ridiculous. But I want to know, I believe he was 20 years old at the time. You take him a Nike contract that you settled on five years, $40 million. And it's all guaranteed $8 million a year. What was the reaction from Tiger Woods when you first presented him that contract? Complete indifference. Wow.

Really? I sat in the hotel suite. It was the night before he went out to play his first round as a pro. The pro am at Milwaukee, 1996. And then we talk about it in the book. I had three contracts. I had a $40 million fully guaranteed deal from Nike, a $20 million fully guaranteed deal from Titleist, and the IMG representation contract. And we describe all of those in detail in the book. But we sat there at this little table and we moved the McDonald's bags and burgers aside. That was the diet of Earl and Tiger without fail every night. I didn't want to get any grease on these nice contracts. So we should. shoved them aside, and we went through them page by page. And really, I said indifference, it's kind of boredom as we go through. Like, not so much Earl, but Tiger kind of yawning and

wondering when Sports Center is going to come on. And, you know, he's 20 years old. He had no frame of reference whatsoever for this. And I kept trying to put it in perspective, I would say, Tiger, just so you know, this $8 million a year for shoes and clothes from Nike is four to five times what the number one guys in the world right now in your sport are making, Nick Faldo and Greg Norman. How do I know that? Because they both were clients of IMG. And it was like, finally, sign him out and I said, well, what do you think? He said, not bad, huh? 40 million. Went and watched TV. Yeah. No, but he had no, you know, no. And we talk about this later in the book. And this sounds crazy, guys, but I used the word,

the outside income. And on top of those two contracts, before I left, we did American Express for 25 million over five years. We did a huge Rolex deal. We did the only deal that he actually had interest in because it was video games, which was electronic arts. It's the only one that he didn't get mad and bitch and moan about how all the days he had to do in the photo sessions that he had to show up for and stuff. So it was about $120 million in the first 24 months, banked. That's wow. And you had all those performance. performance incentives in there where like if you do this, you get this much more than this. And like that was huge too.

Oh, glad you noticed that because that was just amazing. There were bonuses that never in any golf contract I had ever seen were in there. And, you know, you shoot for the moon and sometimes you get it with Nike. But basically, Tiger's view of all this wealth and outside income guaranteeing generational wealth, you know, his kids, his grandkids. His, you know, on and on and on, was an intrusion in his life. And contrast that with Greg, who loved the wealth and the fame and the fortune and the Ferraris in the garage and the helicopter and the ocean going yacht and all that sort of stuff. And Tiger, it was really an intrusion in the way of him becoming the greatest golfer of all time.

It was so diametrically opposed. And people ask me all the time, what were the differences between Tiger Gray? totally, totally different. Tiger did not like the media from day one. You saw a couple instances in the early days when he kind of got burned by the media, and he's been kind of a lousy interview ever since. Greg loved the press, and the press loved him. He just, it was crazy.

So as a result, for Tiger to jettison me, and I stood for all this outside stuff that was intruding on his, what he really wanted to do, which was go play and practice and go to the gym, was an easier, you know, firing, I'm pretty sure, than for a normal golfer who at least would have a sense of appreciation. Tiger never could learn or didn't learn ever growing up, I guess, you know, to be appreciative for pretty much anything. For you as an agent, when you first started this,

and I mean, you signed so many great players. Could you ever imagine, though, having deals at those numbers as what you had for Tiger Woods? I could not quote. And it's kind of been lost here 25 or more years later. People say, you know, 8 million a year, and that's no big deal. Believe me, that was so off the charts in those days. I referenced it four or five times what Norman and Faldo were making. They were the, you know, the longtime stars of the game at that stage. I mean, it was just astronomical. And the whole chapter on Nike and how that came about is pretty interesting in terms of how an agent looks at things. And sometimes you roll the dice. And a lot of times it doesn't work, but it was so cool the way that all came together and the homework that I did and whatever, whatever the opportunity that came about. And to do those things, really you're on top of the mountain when you're an agent. I mean, to have somebody at that much in demand and be able to basically say to American Express, you know, this is, it's five million a year. And quite frankly, guys, it's okay if you don't, you know, he's going to be fine without it.

It's completely the opposite of what you normally beg for. No doubt. If I asked you this, you could have one Mulligan with Tiger Woods. What would it be? I think that I should have more emphasized. I'm not, I don't think I've thought about it a million times. I don't think it would have made much difference. But emphasize more that I totally understood his real goal in life,

and I was never going to let the commercial stuff get in the way of that. I limited as a result, his commercial days, his photo sessions, his sales appearances, the stuff he had to do for all these millions really was so restricted. I compared it to some of the contracts that Arnold Palmer at that stage still had. And it was, Tiger was doing half the number of days. I mean, I really felt I did a good job in that respect, but I didn't communicate that enough to him or tell him, you know, strongly enough that at whatever point, this became too overwhelming. You know, we could we could cut it back. Really the thing that happened, I think, Colt, his, you know, he wins the Masters in 97. Then he totally wants to revamp his swing, which is, as he and I were watching the tapes of the 97 Masters, and he'd say, God, look at that.

What a terrible swing. I can't believe I hit that shot. And I kind of waited a minute. And finally, I said, Tiger, he won by 12 shots. I mean, it's not. not like all this is so bad. And he was adamant. So I've got to change my swing. And that, of course, led to be putting in with Butch Harmon on the road. But in any event, I think what really was a factor was from 97 when he decided to change his swing, he didn't play well the rest of 97 and 98. He was adjusting and getting used to it.

And maybe he blamed me for that. He never verbalized it. Maybe he said, God, my game's nowhere near what it was in Augusta. And, you know, it's got to be the outside stuff. It's all this shit that I shouldn't be doing. And it led to a quote real quick. That's struggling. It led to a quote by Greg Norman.

Later that year, by the way, it said, quote, he got off to a phenomenal fast start, but he's come back to reality, and he's just another golfer out there. Yeah, that's a good one. Just another dude. He's regular. Words you would like to delete from the record, right?

Yeah, he probably got a few of them. Hughes, I got a question, going back to the Nike deal, because I found this contrast really interesting. One, the abrupt ending with Tiger, which you talk about, no explanation, over the phone, very impersonal, just like, boom, we're done. But on the flip side of that,

when you were doing his Nike deal, Nike actually directly reached out to Earl at the 11th hour. It's like, hey, why don't we just wipe out Hughes, eliminate him from this, and you guys don't have to pay all the commission. And Earl turned him down, which seemed like a very,

a really admirable thing at the time. That's a weird contrast. It was the cheap shot of all. cheap shots. I've never been in a situation like that. And I remember, I'd been with the family for 10 years. It was clear to Nike that their trust was in me and vice versa, and that there was going to be a relationship there once you turn pro. All the trips to Nike, I went there four or five times, just doing my homework, getting to know the landscape of the company, what I thought was possible. Steve Miller was the director of sports marketing. A great guy helped me a lot, spending a lot of time

on this. And a couple of meetings with Phil Knight himself. So lo and behold, I get this phone call. We're at the 11th hour. All the terms have been negotiated. It's about a month before Tiger Turns Pro. We haven't signed the contract yet because we can't. He's still an amateur. And I get this call from Earl and he says,

Hughes, you never believe who came to see me today. I said, really, who? He said this really nice, well-dressed African-American executive from Nike. I didn't think anything of it. I said, really, what do you have to say? Well, Earl said, he said that there was no reason for us to deal with you. And this message that he brought, he said, was directly from Phil Knight. Just do the deal with us and save the 20%.

Now, you can imagine at the other end of the phone, what I'm thinking, it's like I gulp and wait a beat and say, so what did you tell him, Earl? And I'll never forget, you know, such a, it was such a, for all the times in this business, the bad stuff happens. Earl sits, he said, I told him, no. I said, go back and tell Phil Knight that you have to trust somebody in this world and Hughes is the guy we trust. Man. Well, that had to make you feel like that.

And that was exhilarating at the time, you know, because it made all the years of, you know, he's 12 years old. when I first seen him and all the years waiting for this kid to turn parole and what's going to happen. So that was great. And fairness, Earl was really always more on my side, even at the end, I think guys than Tiger. I know for a fact Earl tried to talk Tiger out of the decision to fire me and said stuff to him like, you know, he's, look, the relationship's been so long and he was just done so much for us. You can't do that. Yeah. But I think what happened is Tiger had, we had moved him to Florida to save tax get out of California and he was on his own all the way across the country for the first time and this was a decision that I don't know for sure but my guess is that Earl and Tita said to themselves even if this is the wrong thing for Tiger to do we got to let him you know he's a grown man now

he's out of this out of our sphere of influence he's on his own we got we got to support him no matter how wrong we think this decision is and uh let's let's Like I said, I don't know that for a fact, but I think that was certainly an element. Now, it's quite easy to make that decision when you've got $120 million back, right guys? Well, no, I don't know. I'll take your word for it. Feels easy. But, I mean, it's just your career has been unbelievable, how long it was, the things you've accomplished.

I mean, obviously representing six number one players in the world is just is phenomenal. And I know the tiger thing hurt, which it should. I mean, that's very difficult when you do so much for someone and then you get a phone call and there's no changing his mind. but looking back now, like, are you over it now? I know it took a while to get up. I mean, I'm not sure it hurt for a while, but present day, are you over it? You know what? Helped more than anything in a way that I never thought was writing this book.

It was, it was cathartic. It really was to get all of this out after all these years. Remember, I hadn't shared any of this with the media. I turned down all the people that had tried to talk to me about what happened over the years. And I just, it had been simmering for me and sort of, you know, I, you know, Yeah, I'd sort of gone past that as best you can, but there was always something there. And there still is. I mean, let's face it. But, you know, you get it out, you express it.

You feel lighter, sort of, you know, and it's regrets are terrible. That's one of the things I point out in the book. Regrets will kill you. So you still have regrets, like your question, what would you have done differently with Tiger? But you can't change that. And I just, I feel better about it now, telling the story. story. And I didn't write the book, guys, to settle scores. Okay? I really did it because I thought these different parts of the story that we talked about, my story, McCormick, how Beeman changed

the tour, were all pretty interesting things. And as I say on the forward, I really wrote it for my kids. So they, you know, know, the inside and outside of what their dad did. But I'm glad I did it. I'm just thrilled. It's been so well received and so many people have enjoyed it. It really is, I never did it for that purpose or for commercial success. But I had such a great collaborator. And if you guys thought it was a good read and I hear that from you, George Pepper is a big part of it. And he gets a lot of credit. Yeah, we're glad you wrote it because there's some cool stuff. I'd ask you one thing just because you say it in the book, you mentioned it earlier. Like you haven't talked to Tiger since that day, since you guys split up. If you did have a chance to sit down and close the room 10 minutes, is there something you'd want to say to him or ask him? Yeah. I would just say, Tiger, you know, you never gave me an explanation. You said you didn't want to talk about it.

I flew down to see you. You told me not to come. We stood there and I said, let's talk about this. And you said, I have nothing to say. I'm making a change. It's over. Turn around on your heel and walked away. I said, that really isn't a great way to treat anybody, particularly somebody that's been fairly

meaningful in your life. Would you please tell me the reasons? You know, was it Mark O'Mara, who was an influential guy in the early days and who may or may not have urged you to make a change. What was it? What did I do wrong? I said, give me some closure here. You know, I'm a human being. Interestingly, guys, I don't know if you ever heard this from Steve Williams, who's just come out with a new book.

I haven't seen it about his years with Tiger. But Steve Williams, and it wasn't just me. The only solace I can take, I guess, is that I wasn't the only person kind of mistreated. treated by Tiger when he terminated you. But Steve Williams had a great quote. You know, Steve was in Tiger's wedding. 12 majors he was on the bag, right? And Steve Williams said, you know,

I can understand being fired as a caddy. That's what happens out here all the time. The one thing I could never understand with Tiger was why he fired me as a friend. That's the way he is. Yeah, that's tough there. Yeah, I think there's a number of guys. that are in the same boat with that.

They just feel like communication's been cut off. A bunch of his coaches, you know, a bunch of his coaches he hasn't ever. I don't think he's spoken to Hank Haney at all. Hank took him through, what, five or six natures? I mean, crazy, crazy stuff. Yeah, it's been a wild ride. But like I said, we can't thank you enough for writing this book. Rainmaker, if you want to go check it out.

It is a fantastic read. You got Slees and I to finish the whole thing, which is really impressive. Before we let you go. Very rare. We normally do an emergency nine, but we don't have enough time left. Just a couple of little quick, fun ones real quick for you here. I would love to know the weirdest or wildest company that approached you about representing Tiger or one of your clients. This one's in the book.

It's the craziest negotiation ever, and it really wasn't much of one. There's a package goods company called Unilever. I think you've heard the name. They're like Procter & Gamble. They own Breyer's ice cream. They own Vaseline, all kinds of different consumer products. So right after the Masters, they got in touch with me and said, boy, we'd love to do something with Tiger.

What product categories can we do? And we talked about different things. We thought about the ice cream thing because he loves ice cream like any 20-year-old. And they kept coming back and we haven't really made up our mind, but we don't know. You know, what should we do? And finally, sort of in desperation almost to not have to talk to them anymore because I didn't think it was going anywhere. I said, okay, here's the deal. until you guys make up your mind which of your products you'd like Tiger to endorse, if any,

why don't you pay him to exclusively be yours in all of your product categories for the next nine months, which was the end of 1997, I guess. And they said, oh, yeah, that'd be great. How much? Of course, I hadn't given it any thought. So fresh off the American Express and some of these other deals, I said, $2.3 million for nine months. Sold. So Unilever, to the best of my knowledge, guys, became the only company in the history of professional athletes to pay a guy huge amount of money not to endorse their competitors' products.

Not to endorse their own, not to do somebody else's crazy. If anyone out there is looking for sleaze and how to do that, we're available. Shoes, I was going to say, if you got another one of these deals laying around, bud, will get you 25% commission. So just shop that. Shop that. I'll give you one. He was, give me first name that comes to mine here. Either a guy you courted really hard and was unable to land or a guy that you didn't court very hard and just missed on, but who's your biggest miss? John Daly's right up there. Yeah. I had, in the book, it's funny, I'd gone out to see him. I was, I grew up in Portland, Maine. I was back there to play a member guest or something in the summer.

lo and behold, it wasn't even the Nike tour then, whatever it was, was in Portland, Maine. And I knew this guy, this bomber was out there, and I went out to see him. I showed up on Saturday, went to the range, he wasn't there, and I knew what time he was teeing off and went there, not there. So just didn't show up. Didn't think anything of it. Went on to do whatever I was doing that weekend. The next morning's Portland Press Herald, there's an article buried in the sports section, Nike tour golfer John Daly

booked for drunk and disorderly drops out of event doesn't sound like him sure now daily down at the bar in Portland got into a fight or something was in jail and couldn't and didn't play so that was my thing

with John Daley and of course I immediately dismiss him as you know what a waste of time to even talk about this guy and I learned my I learned my lesson the hard way when he was, you know, the story was eighth alternate at the PGA, got the word Wednesday afternoon, drove in his car, and that incredible thing with Nick Price's caddy. Nick Price's wife was giving births. He was the eighth guy to drop out. Squeaky, his catty. Remember him? Was sitting there at Crooked Stick and teamed up with Daley and off they go.

Just dominate it. The bullet in full effect. Beautiful. Beautiful thing. All right. Last one for me. Have you ever brought a deal to a client? And the client? said, no, Hughes, that's too much money. Yep, the one and only Jim Nance. The only person that would say that, by the way. Yep, he's so amazing. This was the titleist thing where Wally Euhin is a longtime CEO of a Cushnet and did so many amazing things to build that company and made your figure in golf.

And he and I were really good friends for whatever reason. I didn't have a lot of people in the business that I negotiated on the other side of the table from that I was good friends with George Prepper, interestingly enough, was one. And Wally was another one. So Wally and I brainstorming one day were talking about titleless commercials. And I thought to myself, the titleless brand and Jim Nance's brand, you know, the voice of sports broadcasting. What a great marriage. Wally said, great. We put together a deal where Jim did a couple of voiceover sessions a year. And you know how good is it those? And how how little time that would take somebody like Jim, plus an occasional sales appearance.

He'd show up at the Titleist sales meeting once or well. We put this together, and I called Jim, I'll never forget, and we talk about this in the book, and I said, Jim, how would you like to be the voice of Titleist? He said, what? I said, your voiceover for all their commercials going forward, TV, radio, everything. He said, oh, my God. He interrupted me. actually said, well, who wouldn't want to do that? He said, how much is the deal? And I said,

this is 1998, $250,000 a year. Silence. I can't do that here. Excuse me? That's too much money. It's not fair. Direct quote. Yeah, too much. And the happy part of the story is, and this is why, you know, people say, what's the best deal you're ever done. Honestly, that one to me is still great because of the two people involved that I thought so much of. And 27 years later, it's still going strong. Jim Nance, the voice of Typles. Wow. Too much money. I always thought Jimmy was a smart dude, but, you know, looks can be deceiving. I will have to say he's the reason this is happening right now. The great Jim Nance introduced me to Hughes. And he did tell me, please send huge my best yeah huge that's a good name yeah huge that was what everybody you know all my all my enemies or people who didn't think that much of me over the years say oh no wonder he's called

huge you know he's got a huge ego and this and that it actually was sevy in his spanglish whenever he saw me we got to be friends i'd actually tried to do some work for him once whenever he saw me he wasn't huge it was oh huge hey huge how you're doing huge so good i heard i love that So all the guys that IMG picked it up, and pretty soon it was all over the tour. That's fantastic. All right. Last one for me, Hughes, and this is going to be a super quick one. But I want to know, after you used it for his 21st birthday in Vegas,

do you think Tiger ever used the alias, Haywood Jablomi, when trying to stay off the grid? I can't claim ownership of that. One of his pals, I want to say it maybe came from Noda, the gay, who was his teammate, and great friend at Stanford. But that was the thing that they would, that was one of their jokes that they, hey, Haywood, Haywood Juby. So we did that deal in the, we did, we set it up when Tiger was coming down.

We all assembled in the lobby of a hotel. And as soon as he got off the elevator, we had the PA and, you know, the announcement from the front desk, said, Mr. Jablomi, Mr. Haywood, Jablomi, please report to the front desk. It's still funny. It is still funny. All these guys from Stanford and even, we're on the floor and tigers, like, what did you just do? That's fantastic.

Yep, it'll never not be funny. Exactly, dude. We're guys. We love with this shit all the time. Well, Hughes, man, it's been so much fun catching up with you. This has been awesome to sit down and talk about your book, Rainmaker. And just your incredible career. You should be very proud, man.

It's really cool. Your story's fascinating. Thank you, Cole. Thank you, Drew. The audio version's out. there. I had a blast doing that. I did little DJ stuff in high school and college, so I was kind of going back in the studio, back when you guys are doing. Amazing story on that. We did. It ended up being nine hours and 20 minutes, the audiobook. Now remember, this is a 230-page book. God help you,

if you're ever recording, you know, Harry Potter. I don't know how long that would take. Wish I had known about it. It took us 20 hours, 20 hours, and it was just so fun to do that. And people have enjoyed listening to that, too. That's awesome, man. Well, what are your appreciate you. Hey, right back at you. You guys have a great podcast and can't wait to hear this one. Thank you, Hughes. That was Super Agent Hughes Norton, joining us on Golf Soparas.

Have he called him huge? Huge Norton. There's worse nicknames than that. But, man, that was awesome sitting down with him. Hearing how he broke into the industry, how he pretty much helped change the game. Him and Mark McCormick representing Greg Norman, Tiger Woods, among a few other.

I thought it was fascinating to hear how Mark McCormick came up with the whole big money world tour many, many moons ago when somebody else acts like, you know, they kind of came up with it. Yeah, I thought that part was extremely fascinating. I mean, Hughes and IMG at the time, like, legitimately revolutionized, like, sports agencies. Like the one-stop shop where they handle you're fine. And they do everything for you. He was on the front end of that, handled the biggest guys in the world.

I thought what was interesting, too, A, contacting Tiger Woods at age 13. Like, we're going to get in front of this one. I mean, dude, how many good juniors have you seen we played with them? They're like, looked like I can't miss kid and then never panned out. Tiger worked out. Also putting Earl on the payroll. That's the big one. Smart.

I mean, every college in the world, I think, is adapted to that strategy now, trying to get relatives in there working for them. And then also, I found this pretty cool, the Nike deal that was, I mean, unparalleled at the time. Going to be the biggest one ever for a golfer. And then at the 11th hour, Nike trying to kneecap come in and cut him out of the deal. And Earl saying, nah. Yeah. And how about five years?

And that would save them millions. Like, he could have easily been like, okay. How about five years, $40 million in 1996? And Tiger says, yeah, not bad. Didn't seem to care at all. You just seemed to care. Cues? We're around if Nike's looking for some more.

Tell you what, you can buy a lot of birdie juice merch with $40 million. All right. And if you're looking to level up your golf gear, custom is the way to go. I just grabbed a few birdie juice teas, super easy process, and they turned out great. You can do the same. Pick your favorite logo and customize polos, hats, hoodies, and more, all from the top golf brands. Make it personal and make it quick. Head to shop.golf.com and gear up with something.

you'll actually wear like that hoodie you're rocking right now you look nice super nice don't i fits very appropriately lightweight comfortable everything all right well as we wrap up here once again huge congratulations to jj spawn winner the 125th u.s open pump for a man that was a game changer can't wait to get him here in studio with the trophy spoke to him today i know he's got a lot of stuff going on he said as soon as i get back we're going to do it so he'll be back in here also not just to win it but like to win it with that putt? Like that's going to be on every montage, every clip going forward

when you think of like big moments at the U.S. Open. And lastly, the thing we didn't speak about earlier, I want to shout out to Adam Scott. We get a lot of attention with guys. They take tough losses, people not talking to the media,

all that sort of stuff. Adam Scott, who was in the mix the entire day, final group, probably gutted. Who knows how many chances he'll get at major championships going forward. In there, congratulate him, genuinely happy for him,

reliving the last put. The camera on Bobby Mack, too. I was going to say. When that went in. I mean, he's a three putt away from being going and warming up again. Well, he was going to be in a playoff Monday morning. Yeah, with a three putt. But Bobby Mack, I think, just gained so many fans without having to say a word out loud.

Camero was on him. There he is clapping. It just goes, wow. And everybody's like, that is a class act right there. Really cool to see him win that way. Bobby Mac played awesome. He's going to be up there at Beth Page, representing Europe. He was really cool by those guys.

I thought he was very impressed with him. Also cool, Tyrell, given a Tyrell. interview. By the way, that was like the full spectrum of tear. It was like a thoughtful answer, then a question he didn't like, and he's like, what kind of question is that? Then the puck goes in, and he's smiling and happy again. But that was cool, too. I thought all those guys handled tough losses well, which we haven't seen, you know, is not always guaranteed. All right, well, what an episode, man. That was a fun one. But before we get out of here, Salis. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Underage sale is prohibited. Introducing zone nicotine

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Can't wait to celebrate with you, my man. Hope y'all enjoyed it. We'll talk to you on next week's subpar.