Meet the man who helped make Tiger Woods a golf legend
Meet the man who made Tiger Woods a golf legend
Tiger Woods won his first Masters in 1997 at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. A new book explores Woods’ path to fame. Getty Images
When Tiger Woods won his first major at the 1997 Masters, the 21-year-old golfer walked off the final tee at Augusta National Golf Club and was hugged by his jubilant father, Earl, and mother, Tidus. Amidst all the hype, the next person to congratulate him was his agent, or “Rainmaker,” Hughes Norton. Long before he won any professional tournaments, he had already made the young Californian a millionaire.
“I was on top of the world, representing some of the toughest athletes on the planet, and enjoying my role as a rainmaker,” Hughes Norton said in Rainmaker: Superagent Hughes Norton and the Explosive Growth of Golf Revenue. from Tiger to LIV and Beyond. (Book of Atria),
As head of golf at global sports agency IMG, Norton worked with some of golf’s biggest names throughout his 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, including Arnold Palmer and Greg Norman. Mr. Norton first met Woods when the golfer was just 12 years old and told his parents at his parents’ home in Cypress, Calif., that they should trust him and IMG to take care of the young man when he turned professional. I persuaded you. “I read a story about a boy who appeared on The Mike Douglas Show when he was 3 years old and continued to appear when he was 6 years old. Mr. Norton’s job was to work with the Woods family to “drive IMG’s stock into the ground.” “I told them all about IMG and how we are the best in the world in our field, but it wasn’t really a publicity stunt,” he added. Woods’ parents Kurtilda and Earl, and his girlfriend (and future wife) Elin Nordegren at the time, watched Tiger win his third Masters title in 2002. Reuters
Then seven years later, until 1996, Tiger became the only golfer in history to win the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship and the U.S. Amateur Championship three times in a row.His Woods signed a string of lucrative contracts with Norton. During his junior year, he turned professional.
Some of these trades were unprecedented in professional football, especially since he was a 20-year-old fresh out of college. advertisement
His apparel contract with Nike guaranteed him $40 million over five years, regardless of performance, and included increased bonuses for tournament wins and improved world rankings.
Meanwhile, Woods’ deal with equipment maker Titleist paid him $20 million over five years, also with lucrative add-ons. But when Mr. Norton presented Mr. Woods with the contract at a hotel in Milwaukee, his reaction was muted, even though he was making four times as much as Greg Norman, then the No. 1 player in the world.
“It’s really not bad,” he said with a shrug. Norton was stunned.
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“I thought a more appropriate response would have been, ‘Damn, Hughes, that’s amazing!'” he said. “But Tiger just signed the deal and went out for coke and hamburgers as usual.”
Amex paid him $25 million over five years. EA Sports gave Woods $1 million for his likeness in video games, and Rolex gave him $200,000 in annual royalties, plus $645,000 in royalties for Tiger Woods’ signature Tudor watch. Meanwhile, Japanese beverage maker Asahi signed Woods to a three-year contract worth $4.6 million annually in exchange for one day of commercial filming each year, and Wheaties gave Woods $250,000 to appear on its cereal boxes. Golf Digest paid $320,000 for just four appearances. Number of your hours per year.
After Norton received the money, he moved Woods from California to Florida to save millions of dollars in state taxes. But to the young Woods, the wealth he earned on the golf course, or “paper money,” as he called it, meant nothing compared to that wealth.
