Puttview provides our hole-by-hole maps for the host site of the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba on the PGA Tour.
El Camaleon Golf Club, site of this week’s World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba on the PGA Tour, was designed by Greg Norman and opened in 2004 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. In 2007 it became the first course in Mexico to host a PGA Tour event.
Located about an hour’s drive south of Cancun, the course plays through jungle, thick mangroves and alongside the oceanfront. The paspalum layout ranks No. 18 on Golfweek’s Best course-ranking list for Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic islands and Central America. It will play to 7,039 yards with a par of 71 for this week’s Tour event.
Thanks to yardage books provided by Puttview – the maker of detailed yardage books for more than 30,000 courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges that players face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
Norman is expected to remain in his role as host of the Shootout.
In a story posted on ESPN.com Friday morning, QBE Shootout founder and host Greg Norman confirmed that he will be the commissioner of a new golf league and stepping away from his business enterprises.
But Norman will remain in his role as host of the Shootout, which is played Dec. 8-12 at Tiburón Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida, and just announced its field Tuesday.
Wasserman Events operates all of the golf tournaments previously operated by Greg Norman Production Company. Wasserman bought GNPC in 2015. That includes the Shootout, so Norman’s move doesn’t directly affect his role in that event.
On Friday, Norman announced his association with Liv Golf Enterprises, which is backed by the Private Investment Fund. That fund operates on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. According to ESPN.com, Norman will be chief operating officer as well as commissioner.
Norman will stay in South Florida, where he purchased a new home in Palm Beach Gardens after selling his one on Jupiter Island for $55 million. He also sold his ranch in Colorado for $40 million earlier this year.
Norman will remain involved with his golf course design business, according to the ESPN story.
“What do I do with the Greg Norman Company?” Norman told ESPN.com. “It has 12 divisions. I can’t do both. I can’t put both feet in both office buildings and give 100% effort. So I decided to step away from Greg Norman Company. I’m handing the reins over for the first time in my life to other individuals to run my company.”
The Shootout field is led by three-time champions Matt Kuchar and Harris English, who won by nine strokes last year. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker and LPGA Tour star Lexi Thompson also are part of the 24-player field that features scramble, modified alternate shot and best ball in three tournament rounds. Thirteen players in the field are in the top 50 in the world golf rankings.
The Shootout also features Live Fest, a concert on Saturday, Dec. 11 that has Thomas Rhett and Cole Swindell as headliners, with Runaway June and Ben Allen Band also on the lineup.
Tournament officials expect to announce the 12 two-player teams for the Shootout this week.
Norman is a perfect guinea pig for the Saudis—a PGA Tour member who can test the legality of a ban in court while having nothing at stake.
Since it took the Saudis almost 10 years to sign a player to their global golf ambitions, we might have expected someone more compelling than a 66-year-old retiree a quarter-century beyond his prime, whose unquenchable thirst for relevance has been laid (literally) bare-arsed on social media with an undignified frequency.
There are obvious reasons why Greg Norman is an appealing front man for LIV Golf Investments, the Saudi-financed outfit that has announced plans for 10 events to be held on the Asian Tour. For starters, he’s already contracted to design a golf course near Riyadh, so he didn’t need to be persuaded to overlook those pesky human rights abuses. Norman has already signaled that he doesn’t care about that.
He remains a brand name in the sport, though he might have finally jumped his own logo when he started slinging beef jerky. He’s no pied piper—attitudes toward him in the locker room have always been lukewarm—but for the casual fan who considers Norman’s catchpenny clothing line to be haute couture, his involvement confers legitimacy.
Finally, he has harbored undisguised animus toward the PGA Tour since 1994, when he launched a bumbling attempt at a world tour that was quickly squashed by then-commissioner Tim Finchem. Finchem was actually helping Norman save face, but Norman later accused Finchem of stealing his concept for the World Golf Championships. That appetite for avenging long-nursed grudges must have appealed to the Crown Prince when he was reviewing résumés of prospective patsies.
Friday’s Asian Tour announcement by the Saudis is a deft decoy, showing momentum on a lesser front to distract from their lack of concrete progress on the project they actually care about. At face value, the numbers seem impressive: $200 million, 10 years, 10 tournaments. Whittle it down and what you have is just a commitment to stage regular Asian Tour stops with piddling purses. The Saudi International, which was booted from the European Tour schedule, is separate from those 10 tournaments and becomes the Asian Tour’s flagship event.
PGA Tour members will need to request waivers to play any of these events—presumably for stout appearance fees—but this is not the makings of a true breakaway league. That concept, known as the Super Golf League, is a separate beast, and where the real Saudi ambitions remain.
The Super Golf League notion has been around for at least seven years and multiple iterations. It envisions lucrative tournaments featuring the world’s best players (no Davids among the Goliaths, please!), a team component and with guaranteed money and signing fees reported at upwards of $30 million. The financials are so exorbitant that a return on the investment for the Saudis is nigh on impossible, unless of course the only return sought is the laundering of a grotesque reputation.
Numerous players have flirted with the Super Golf League but none have committed, not least because PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has made clear he’ll ban anyone who does so. One player told me he’s been assured by his attorney that the Tour can’t expel him. A Tour executive, on the other hand, told me they have a Manhattan office building full of lawyers confident they can. The likelihood of a legal standoff also makes Norman an attractive tool for the Saudis.
Greg Norman removes his hat after finishing on the 18th green during the final round of the PNC Championship, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2020, in Orlando, Florida. (Photo: Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press)
As a 20-time winner, Norman is a lifetime member of the PGA Tour. And while his fronting a Saudi investment in the Asian Tour is of little consequence, any subsequent announcement that he will head up the rival Super Golf League would virtually guarantee a PGA Tour ban. That would pose no practical problem for the former world No. 1, who hasn’t made a start in almost 10 years. Any other player who signs with the Saudis—say, Phil Mickelson or Bryson DeChambeau—risks being benched while lawyers fight it out, unwelcome at a Tour that does exist and unable to play one that doesn’t.
Which makes Norman a perfect guinea pig for the Saudis—a PGA Tour member who can test the legality of a ban in court while having nothing at stake.
That, in turn, poses an intriguing dilemma for Monahan. Does he ban Norman for what would be meaningless posturing as commissioner of a rival league that doesn’t yet exist—thereby setting him up to challenge the Tour’s standing to enact such a ban—or does he ignore Norman and force another player to step up and risk everything? Monahan is acutely aware that no player has yet shown the stomach for that gamble.
It’s still feasible that the Super Golf League might sign players, but everything hangs on who and how many. The Saudis need a plenum of superstars to jump in lockstep and act as a tipping point to persuade any doubters. No elite player will rush to join a ragtag parade of washed-up guys who desperately need the money and who have no competitive runway left on the PGA Tour. Those still in their prime will be hesitant to board someone else’s rickety life raft when the yacht they currently occupy is very much seaworthy.
The war with the Saudis has exposed weaknesses in both the PGA Tour product and professional golf as a whole. The Tour faces a reckoning: on how it rewards top players, on how weighted it is toward journeymen, on what it delivers to fans. And the broader game must consider where and with whom it does business. Saudi Arabia is hardly the only reprehensible state in which golf plies its trade with no concern for human rights abuses by its host. If we are to draw a moral line in the sand—that murderous regimes not be permitted to use golf to sportswash their depredations—then it needs to apply to professional tours as much as to individual players.
Depending on who you ask, the on-boarding of Norman is momentum toward the Saudi end game or a means to buy time while they enter yet another year of trying to sign players to their League. Is it progress or desperation? Norman’s shotgun wedding to the Saudis—let’s call it a bonesaw betrothal—poses more questions than it answers. All we know for certain is that it says something about the character of Greg Norman, and that something ain’t flattering.
Greg Norman is expected to be announced as the frontman for the new circuit, sources have also confirmed.
Multiple sources have confirmed to Golfweek that a private meeting with golf media members will take place on Wednesday night, outlining plans for a new Saudi-backed golf series.
Greg Norman is expected to be announced as the commissioner for the new circuit, sources have also confirmed.
It’s unclear whether the new series will be unveiled as a full league—the Saudis have previously pitched the Premier Golf League (PGL) and Super Golf League (SGL) to no avail—or as a trial balloon with a handful of tournaments. Nor is it clear what the PGA Tour will do in response.
Media members who attend the session in New York City will be asked to hold the news until early next week, sources have confirmed. Golfweek, which has written critically about the potential tour in the past, was not invited to attend the event.
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With the Saudis behind the push, the new circuit will have the cash to lure top names. Back in May, a group made multi-million dollar offers to several of the game’s best players, including then-world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose, with some reaching in the neighborhood of $50 million.
That proposed league was expected to feature 40-48 players playing an 18-event schedule in tournaments around the world with lucrative purses, with a season-ending team championship. The league would have included guaranteed money as well as a team concept that would dole out ownership stakes for 10-12 players who would captain four-man teams.
The PGA Tour also announced a new strategic partnership with the European Tour.
The unencumbered Asian Tour, however, is still a viable option for with whom the Saudis could partner. In fact, the 2022 Saudi International in February will be conducted under the auspices of that tour, in which the Saudis made a $100 million investment. Golfweek last week reported that eight PGA Tour players have asked for permission to participate in that event. Tour players need to obtain a release to compete on other circuits.
Norman is an interesting, but natural choice to front the new series. In 1994, he proposed the World Golf Tour, a series of eight no-cut events intended to bring 40 players together. The plan was shot down by the Tour, yet then-commissioner Tim Finchem announced the World Golf Championships in 1997, adhering to many of the same principles. Golfweek reached out to Norman’s public relations person, Jane MacNeille, but didn’t get a response.
Norman was among those flown in to take part in the inaugural Golf Saudi Summit in 2020. Others who also took part in that event included Asian Tour CEO Cho Minn Thant and Ladies European Tour CEO Alexandra Armas.
Saudi Golf has been forcing its way into the international golf scene in recent years, including ownership of the Ladies European Tour’s Aramco Team Series, which made its third of four stops at the Glen Oaks Club on Oct. 14-16. Nelly Korda, Lexi Thompson, Jessica Korda, Danielle Kang and Lizette Salas were among the American players in the field. The final stop of that series will be in November in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club, the same venue hosting the Saudi International.
Check out the loaded field for December’s event in Naples.
Steve Stricker will get an early look at Tiburón Golf Club before defending the Chubb Classic. But Lexi Thompson will already have had one.
Stricker, the victorious 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup captain, will be focused on a team again, this time with whomever he’s paired with in the QBE Shootout, the unofficial PGA Tour event founded and hosted by Greg Norman, from Dec. 8-12.
And after a one-year hiatus, LPGA star Lexi Thompson returns. She couldn’t play last year due to the Shootout conflicting with the U.S. Women’s Open. Thompson had played the previous four years. She was paired with Sean O’Hair, who is in the field this year, in 2019. Thompson has qualified for the CME Group Tour Championship at Tiburón from Nov. 15-21.
Norman announced the Shootout field Tuesday for the 21st edition in Naples, Florida, and 33rd overall. Tickets already are on sale.
“We are so excited to have the fans,” Norman said in a release. “The collection of players assembled to compete is very strong and includes rising stars, major champions and PGA Tour winners who will deliver an exciting three days of team competition for our global television audience and a first-class hospitality experience for our pro-am partners. More importantly, we will continue to raise charitable funds and awareness for CureSearch for Children’s Cancer and other worthy causes.”
Stricker, who sold his home in Naples earlier this year, won’t get to play the Black Course, the site of February’s PGA Tour Champions Chubb Classic that he won in April. The Shootout, as well as the upcoming CME Group Tour Championship, are both on the club’s Gold Course.
Stricker will be joined by one of his players, Harris English, who also won the Shootout last year with Matt Kuchar. European Ryder Cup players Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are also in the field.
The field will feature 13 of the top-50 ranked players in the world including No. 15 English, No. 19 Sam Burns, No. 20, Billy Horschel, No. 28 Kevin Na, No. 29 Jason Kokrak, No. 33 Max Homa, No. 35 Corey Conners, No. 36 Marc Leishman, No. 37 Westwood, No. 40 Kevin Kisner, No. 41 Ryan Palmer, No. 49 Brian Harman, and No. 50 Poulter.
English and Kuchar were dominant last year, winning by nine strokes. The duo also won in 2013, 2014 and 2016, and finished second in 2015.
Ten players competing for the Shootout’s $3.6 million purse combined for fourteen (14) victories during the 2020-21 season and the recent start of the 2021-22 season. English won twice during that stretch, as did Burns, Kokrak and Homa. Hudson Swafford, Na, Horschel, K.H. Lee, Leishman and Kisner were all individual winners.
Collectively, the 24 players have accumulated 109 career PGA Tour victories and 11 LPGA titles.
Some familiar faces also are back, including two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson (fifth consecutive appearance and seventh overall), former major champion Graeme McDowell (ninth appearance), former major champion and world No. 1 Jason Day (third appearance), Palmer and Harold Varner III (fourth for each).
Westwood is making his first appearance since 2013.
Brandt Snedeker, O’Hair, English, Kuchar, Day, Poulter, and Harman are all former Shootout champions in the field.
Four players — Burns, Homa, Lee and Swafford — will be competing in the Shootout for the first time.
Golf Channel will broadcast Friday’s first-round competition live from noon to 4 p.m. Over the weekend, the final two rounds will feature live coverage on both Golf Channel and NBC. Saturday’s coverage will begin from 1 to 3 p.m. on Golf Channel then switching to NBC from 3 to 5 p.m. The final round will air on Golf Channel from noon to 2 p.m., and on NBC from 2 to 4 p.m.
The QBE Shootout will once again feature a scramble format during the first round, a modified alternate shot format on Saturday and a final-round better ball on Sunday.
CureSearch for Children’s Cancer will continue to be the tournament’s primary charitable beneficiary. Since 1989, the Shootout has raised more than $15 million for charitable causes.
“We are proud to support the QBE Shootout and I’m thrilled about this year’s player field,” said Todd Jones, CEO of QBE North America. “Once again, this world-class event will offer three days of exciting, competitive golf, while contributing to charities that make important contributions to the community.”
One of the charms of professional golf has always been that it’s a meritocracy. You shoot lower scores, you finish higher on the leader board, you make more money. There are no long-term contracts where a player hits .203 for the season but still …
One of the charms of professional golf has always been that it’s a meritocracy. You shoot lower scores, you finish higher on the leader board, you make more money.
There are no long-term contracts where a player hits .203 for the season but still gets paid the $30 million he agreed to in a contract years prior. There are no bonus clauses for all-star game appearances or for the number of games played.
Want more money? Shoot better scores.
Yes, there are endorsement deals out there for players, but to a great degree, those deals still hinge on a player’s performance.
That’s what makes news of the new PGA Tour bonus pool a bit odd. First reported by Golfweek, the Players Impact Program is not so much about how a golfer is playing, but how a golfer impacts the game through a variety of metrics that don’t include scoring average or strokes gained: putting.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer at the Palm Springs (Calif.) Desert Sun, part of the USA Today Network.
In a nutshell, the $40 million bonus pool will be divided among players who, in the language of television, move the needle. Those are players who bring positive attention to the game.
The metrics used will include the popularity of a player in Google search, how well a player brings exposure to his sponsors through something called Nielsen Brand Exposure, his Q ratings of familiarity and appeal, something called an MVP rating of the engagement players to generate on social and digital channels and finally something called Meltwater Index rating, which figures out a player’s value across a range of media platforms.
In other words, how popular is a player and how does that popularity help the PGA Tour and the player’s sponsors?
The Players Impact Program does smack of the rich getting richer. That’s something the PGA Tour already does with its World Golf Championships, a series of no-cut, high-profile events that help highly ranked players remain highly ranked merely by being in the field and getting a guaranteed check at the end of the week.
More money, and guaranteed money, was part of the promise behind a breakaway tour proposed by powers in Saudi Arabia last year.
Although Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka — then the top three golfers in the world — had all came out to reject the PGL, the following players were reportedly linked to the new circuit: Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Paul Casey and Koepka.
Soon after, a historic alliance was announced between the PGA Tour and European Tour after months of tense negotiations, fending off a rival bid to take a stake in the European circuit by the private equity group fronting the PGL.
So although the potential rival was thwarted, now comes a PGA Tour program that mimics the PGL’s premise of giving top players greater, and more reliable, income.
Greg Norman watches the ball after swinging at Augusta National GC. Norman proposed a World Golf Tour and a few years later then-PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem helped to create a bastardized version of the idea. File Photo: The Augusta Chronicle via USA TODAY NETWORK
More money for top players
If that scenario sounds familiar, think back to when Greg Norman proposed a World Golf Tour, only to be shot down by then-Commissioner Tim Finchem, who then helped create the World Golf Championships, a nearly identical idea.
For those who need a refresher, Norman told the golf world of his master plan to start a competing tour back in 1994. He chose the pristine Sherwood Country Club outside of Los Angeles — where he hosted the Shark Shootout — revealing a proposal to start a mini-tour, beginning with eight dates in 1995.
The purses would be large and the fields small — only 40 players would be invited to each event, with 30 coming from the golf rankings and 10 through exemptions. Even the last-place finishers would receive $30,000 and all who signed up for the tour were to be given a yearly travel stipend of $50,000.
Norman’s effort was framed as greedy and self-serving. His tour never got off the ground.
And in 1997, Finchem announced plans for the World Golf Championships, which adhered to many of the same principles.
No one is saying a player, his name and his likeness shouldn’t be rewarded for popularity. That happens in all forms of the entertainment world, from sports to movies to music. It is what will eventually bring down the NCAA and amateur athletics entirely. But $40 million for popular players seems, well, a little greedy.
The PGA Tour has plenty of money, obviously. And they also to a degree control the amount of exposure a player gets through pairings and television windows. So that should be a concern for players who might not be in the bonus pool.
Could the Tour have used that money better? Of course. There are golfers on the Korn Ferry Tour, the Latinosamerica Tour and the Mackenzie Tour who would like to make a basic living, and the money could have been used for that. There are tournaments that fight hard to make money for local charities, and the bonus pool money could have been used to supplement those donations to perhaps a minimum for each event.
And there are efforts to grow the game of golf that could benefit from that money, cash that will instead go to already well-compensated players.
Who will get the money? Well, you can assume Tiger Woods will be the most popular golfer in the world for a while, even if he never plays again after his recent automobile accident. Players like Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson will be on the list, no doubt, as will Rickie Fowler, whose popularity and commercial appeal extend beyond his on-course accomplishments.
More money for top players (and team owners) is always going to be a driving force in sports. It’s why the NFL is going to a 17-game schedule next year. It’s why there was a proposal this week for a super league of soccer in Europe among the top clubs in the game, a proposal that crashed spectacularly when fans saw through the greed.
In a world where “social media influencer” is an actual job title and athletes have replaced movie stars as the world’s biggest celebrities (think Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as well as Tiger Woods), money for a player’s Q rating can’t be a surprise.
Even if it’s a bit of a surprise it showed up in the meritocracy of golf.
Larry Bohannan is The Palm Springs (Calif.) Desert Sun golf writer, part of the USA Today Network. He can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com.
World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman reportedly just bought a new home in Palm Beach Gardens near Brad Faxon.
Brad Faxon has a new neighbor. And a former fellow TV analyst.
Faxon and his wife Dory, a real estate agent, live in the Old Palm Golf Club community in Palm Beach Gardens where World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman reportedly just bought a new home. Both Faxon and Norman were part of FOX’s golf coverage.
“I know which house he bought, the Lashingers’ house. I read what he paid for it ($12.2 million) — I never know if that’s true,” said Faxon at the Chubb Classic presented by SERVPRO at Tiburón Golf Club, where Norman designed both courses.
Norman also is the tournament founder and host of the QBE Shootout, the PGA Tour team event played at Tiburón since 2001. This is the first year the Black Course has hosted the PGA Tour Champions tournament. The Shootout and the CME Group Tour Championship on the LPGA tour have both been played on the facility’s Gold Course.
Old Palm’s golf course was designed by Raymond Floyd, and has had several tour pros call it home at some point. Ernie Els was the most recent to leave.
“When we moved down, Ian Baker-Finch lived there, Louis (Oosthuizen), Charl (Schwartzel), Branden Grace, Shane Lowry’s renting in there,” Faxon said. “(Lee) Westwood lived there.”
Rory McIlroy also owned a home there, but reportedly bought Els’ home at The Bear’s Club.
And Faxon said Els has sold his place and moved near Seminole Golf Club.
“Now it’s like everything in Florida is sold out,” he said. “There’s no places left anywhere. It’s crazy.”
Norman’s new 11,837-square-foot house sits on two acres and features six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and two half-baths. The property also has a tennis court, guest house and a massive resort-style pool with a swim-up bar.
Tiger Woods’ ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, paid $9.4 million for a home there in September.
Norman has reportedly wanted to return to Australia after battling COVID-19 late last year. Norman also sold his Seven Lakes ranch in Colorado for $52 million in March.
Greg Norman and his wife, Kiki, have sold their sprawling estate for $55.1 million. The buyer reportedly is the owner of Victoria’s Secret.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman and his wife, Kiki, have sold Tranquility, their sprawling Jupiter Island, Florida, estate, for $55.1 million.
The 32,000-square-foot estate at 382 S. Beach Road in Hobe Sound sold on April 7. The buyer reportedly is the family of Les Wexner, chairman emeritus of L Brands, owner of Victoria’s Secret.
The eight-acre Tranquility compound is a sprawling beach-to-Intracoastal Waterway enclave. It features 10 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, six half-bathrooms, two wine cellars, two pools, more than 170 feet of oceanfront and water frontage, and 370 feet of docking space on the Intracoastal. A 150-foot yacht could dock at the property.
In addition to the main house, there’s a pool house, tennis house, boathouse, carriage house, beach house plus a 5,000-square-foot basement.
Norman bought Tranquility in 1991 for $5 million. Since then, he has put it on the market, taken it off the market and done a major renovation.
The Normans put the property up for sale again in February for $59.9 million, landing a buyer only two weeks after the property was listed.
A Coldwell Banker spokeswoman confirmed the sale, which is not yet recorded in Martin County public records. However, an MLS listing on Monday afternoon included an update that the property had been sold for $55.095 million.
Despite the sale, Norman and his wife continue to be Florida homeowners.
Norman buy in Palm Beach Gardens
On April 8, the day after selling Tranquility, they turned around and paid $12.2 million for a home in Old Palm Golf Club, an exclusive private golf community in Palm Beach Gardens. The retired pro golfer, nicknamed The Great White Shark, beat back rival buyers to snare the coveted, double-lot home at 12227 Tillinghast Circle, according to people in real estate familiar with the deal.
Greg Norman has paid $12 million for a house in Old Palm Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens.
Norman and his wife are doing a number of real estate trades in anticipation of a planned move to Australia, following a bout with COVID-19 last year, according to published reports.
Norman’s new home in Old Palm is expected to be a second home. It is much smaller than the Jupiter Island estate, but it still is luxurious.
The 11,837-square-foot house sits on two acres and features six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and two half-baths. The property also has a tennis court, guest house and a massive resort-style pool with a swim-up bar.
Rob Thomson of Waterfront Properties in Jupiter represented the Old Palm seller, Joseph Lashinger. A former casino executive, Lashinger bought the house for $5 million in 2009. He also bought an adjacent lot, where he built the the tennis court and pool, Palm Beach County property records show.
Thomson declined to comment on the sale.
But speaking generally, Thomson described Old Palm as a lushly landscaped community filled with palm trees that evoke the feel of Palm Beach. It is very private, with many of its homes nestled either amid woods or on the community’s private golf course, which was designed by Raymond Floyd.
Connie McGinnis, Old Palm director of sales, represented Norman in the deal. He did not return a phone call seeking comment on Monday. Norman also did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Neighbors include Ernie Els, Tiger Woods’ ex
Norman’s new home in Old Palm is on the same street where Dr. Ben Carson, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary, lives with his wife, Candy.
Other notable Old Palm residents include pro golfer Ernie Els and Elin Nordegren, the ex-wife of Tiger Woods. In September, Nordegren paid $9.4 million for a home at 12251 Tillinghast Circle.
The real estate deals follow Norman’s well-publicized bout with COVID-19 last year. Norman was hospitalized with the virus and later urged people to take the disease seriously.
In January, he told Stellar magazine, an Irish publication, that he wanted to return to Australia after his battle with COVID.
“I want to get back to Australia as soon as I can,” Norman said.
Since then, the athlete-turned-businessman has been busy selling his two U.S. residential compounds.
In March, he unloaded his Seven Lakes ranch in Meeker, Colorado, for $52 million, one year after listing it for $60 million. He bought the 12,000-acre ranch in 2004 for $12 million.
Norman has won more than 90 tournaments worldwide, including two British Opens, and he holds the distinction of having defended his No. 1 position in the world golf rankings for 331 weeks, the second-longest reign in history.
In recent years, Norman has become a busy entrepreneur. He leads the Greg Norman Company, which has designed more than 100 golf courses across six continents. A bit of renaissance man, Norman also produces wine, makes golf-inspired apparel and has his own brand of prime Wagyu beef, Greg Norman Australian Prime.
The aphorism that familiarity breeds contempt holds true in friendships, but not at the Masters, where the prevailing sentiment is fear.
The final round of the 85th Masters unfolded in the same manner as most of the 84 preceding it, marked by neither charge nor collapse that would further burnish the lore of Augusta National, but instead just a humdrum march into history.
What was surely a tremendous relief for Hideki Matsuyama and the expectant nation whose weight he carries, also served also to highlight the absence of the other, less noble narrative we’ve come to relish at the Masters: the agony that invariably shadows someone else’s ecstasy.
As the only major championship venue visited annually, Augusta National occupies an intimate space in the minds of fans and competitors. The aphorism that familiarity breeds contempt holds true in families and friendships, but not at Augusta National, where the prevailing sentiment is anticipation or fear, depending upon whether one is viewing or competing.
For no matter how serenely a man may be sailing through the final round, he— and everyone watching — knows exactly where icebergs lurk ahead, and that no deviation is possible.
With each triumph authored on the second Sunday in April (or, in Dustin Johnson’s case, the third one in November) there are attendant disasters, many better known to aficionados than the limbs of their family tree. The Masters shines an adoring light on its winners, but no tournament casts a more coruscating and enduring glare on its losers.
“It’s just a different feel,” Rory McIlroy said. “That’s the difference between closing out another major championship and closing out a Masters.”
McIlroy can attest, having closed out four of the former but melted to a back-nine 43 when called upon to do the latter.
No one really got close enough to Matsuyama on Sunday to qualify as either challenger or choker, but the ranks of Augusta’s nearly men can wait another year to expand. No player is eager to be the next conscript, though they’d join a legendary cohort.
A few years ago, I chatted outside the National’s clubhouse with Curtis Strange. Back in ’85, he had opened with 80 but held a three-stroke lead walking off the 12th green in the final round. He rinsed balls at 13 and 15, finishing T-2. More than 30 years had passed, but when I asked how long it had taken for that hurt to fade, he replied: “You mean it does?”
In 2018, I sat watching the third round with David Duval, whose mind wandered to the four straight years (’98-’01) when he had a chance to win a Masters. Three months after his last tilt at a green jacket, Duval claimed his lone major at the Open Championship. I asked if that win had eased the disappointment of not winning at Augusta National.
He gazed at me as though he had never before been presented with a question so imbecilic. Finally, he shook his head firmly and said, “No.”
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There are others: Greg Norman, defined less by his successes in the British Open than by his failures at the Masters; Ernie Els, owner of four majors but not the one he most wanted; Tom Weiskopf, who would be in the hall of fame had he won at Augusta National, but instead, he was second four times so he’s not. Johnny Miller, runner-up three times. So too Tom Kite. No one played Augusta National better for longer without winning than Kite, whose longevity is cemented by the fact that he was the runner-up in both Jack’s last win and Tiger’s first.
One of the most memorable mini-tragedies wasn’t even wrought by clubs but rather by a pencil. See: De Vicenzo, Roberto.
Even those welcome at the Champions Dinner weren’t immune. Twenty years ago, I asked a handful of legends to identify a single shot from their career they‘d most like to have over. Arnold Palmer and Gary Player combined for seven Masters wins, but both remained haunted by wayward shots to the final green—in ’61 and ’62, respectively—that handed victory to the other. Seve Ballesteros said he couldn’t let go of a ghastly hooked 4-iron into the water on No. 15 when he was leading in ’86.
But this was a Masters to be remembered for Matsuyama’s imperious stability on Sunday and the seismic impact his win will have in Asia, not for the implosion of someone else.
There were still plenty of disappointed contenders pointing courtesy cars to the crummy end of Magnolia Lane, but at least none carried with them the corrosive aftertaste of a final-round fiasco. Only 361 days until we see if the next cast in golf’s most thrilling drama will be as fortunate.
A small path off the 16th tee leads to a gnarled live oak. Ask any of the members about the area and a smile instantly comes to their faces.
SAN ANTONIO — The 16th tee box at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course sits perched with a stunning view of the green and the vast JW Marriott resort behind it.
The vista is so good, in fact, it’s the spot they’ve chosen to place a white Lexus — one waiting for any player at the Valero Texas Open to take it home with an ace on the 183-yard par 3. The area is a hub of activity due to a number of cabanas, a nearby fan shop and its proximity to the main entrance.
And when smaller-than-normal crowds follow names like Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler on this Central Texas course this week, they’ll shuffle past a small path just off the 16th tee that leads down behind a stunning, gnarled live oak.
For those with little knowledge of the course, it’s insignificant.
But ask any of the members about the area and a smile instantly comes to their faces.
“You mean the Sergio tees?” one member said on Thursday. “Trust me, we all know about the Sergio tees.”
A pair of courses sit in Cibolo Canyon, about 20 miles north of the famous Riverwalk. The Canyons Course — home of the PGA Tour Champions AT&T Championship from 2011 to 2015 — was designed by Pete Dye, who used Bruce Lietzke as his player consultant.
But the Oaks Course was designed by Greg Norman, in consultation with Sergio Garcia. At the time Norman was working through the project, Garcia was dating his daughter, Morgan-Leigh Norman. The two split up, however, before TPC San Antonio officially opened in 2010.
According to the urban legend told by members, Garcia was not extensively involved as the project neared completion, but one of his major contributions to the course was an alternate tee box on 16, which is still rudimentarily maintained, but never set up for live play.
A view from the alternate ‘Sergio tees’ off the 16th tee at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course. Sergio Garcia is said to have come up with the idea for the box, although it’s not used during the Valero Texas Open. (Photo by Tim Schmitt/Golfweek)
For those who play the course regularly, the Sergio tees often provide an added level of excitement.
“I’d say we only play over there one in every 20 times,” said member Aaron Imler of San Antonio, who has been a member of TPC San Antonio for eight years. “But if it’s a big-money game and we want to mix it up, we’ll use it. And it makes things interesting.”
The Sergio tees play over a pond (immaterial for Tour players) and a series of bunkers. It makes the hole considerably more difficult, even if it shortens things a bit.
“If the pin is on the left side of that green, the angle is really difficult,” Imler said. “There’s no way to get to it. You almost have to play right, take your medicine and try to make par.”
The Sergio tees have only been used once at the Valero Texas Open, during a single round of the 2010 event — the year the tournament ended a 15-year run at La Cantera Golf Club and moved to TPC San Antonio. Adam Scott won that year, holding off Fredrik Jacobson for the victory.
According to numerous people asked on Thursday, there are no plans to include the Sergio tees in any future event.
Imler, for one, thinks that’s a shame.
“They really should use them,” he said, while taking in the first round on Thursday. “The members would sure get a kick out of it, but it would also make things interesting for the players. They wouldn’t know where it’s going to be each day.”
