The list of Hughes Norton’s engagements in the sports world is endless. The focus presently is his intriguing new book, Rainmaker, which contains anecdotes of his association with Tiger Woods and Greg Norman. The two were, and still are considered to be all-time greats and were regarded as bitter competitors. But as Hughes Norton’s riveting book reveals, there was a shocking difference between the goals and personalities behind the scenes.
Norton portrayed Woods as a person who was extremely discomforted with the idea of fame. Woods’s former agent said that fame was “an intrusion into his (Tiger Woods) life.” But on the contrary, Greg Norman loved the fame, and everything that came with it; “Greg, on the other hand, loved the adoration, the attention, and the wealth with the Gulfstream jets and the seven Ferraris in the garage.” The former agent also claimed that the Australian had an insatiable “consuming need to be visible and relevant.”
Elaborating on Woods’s attitude and comparing the two, the author said, “But Tiger couldn’t care less.” Norton revealed about the 5x major champion that he did not care much about money. “At one point he said, ‘You know there’s this $40 million from Nike, $20 million from Titleist, it’s paper money, Hughes’. He picked up a winner’s cheque from a tournament he’d just won and said, ‘See this, this $300,000 I won in Las Vegas, that’s real to me. This other stuff is paper money. It’s an interesting outlook but it showed you how narrow-focused he was,” said while talking to Today’s Golfer.
Norton’s turbulent 11-year run as Norman’s agent, which ended in a contentious split, is covered in two complete chapters in the former’s book. Woods and Norman are opposite personalities, and this might just be the reason for their long-standing troubled relationship. The two met for the first time when Woods was just 15 years old and played a round of golf together at Bay Hill in Orlando. They even played a few practice rounds together during the 1995 and 1996 Masters, and it is to be believed that their relationship started to rumble in later half of 96.
How did the duo’s friendship go haywire
In 1996, Woods listed Norman’s Shark Shootout among the tournaments he would but the latter’s representatives mentioned that no such invitation had been extended. Woods opted out to play when a formal invitation was extended to him and played in the Australian Open. In 2011, the LIV CEO also said he would not have picked Woods to play on the U.S. Presidents Cup team. In 2015, Norman said, “He will win again. He will win other tour events. But a major? I don’t see it.”
In 2019, when Woods won the Masters, Norman sent him a handwritten letter, via his guard, and he never really heard back about it from the golfer. Talking about it, the Australian golf veteran said, “I don’t know – maybe Tiger just dislikes me. I have no idea. I’ve never had a conversation with him about it.”
One thing that kind of is clear is that Woods does not like Norman. Woods called for Norman’s resignation from LIV Golf as he said, “I think Greg’s got to leave.” With Norton’s statements, it is like adding fuel to the fire.
