THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT

June 1, 1997

Greg Norman

GREG NORMAN: They've tried everything possible to get this to a 72-hole tournament. But it's going to be 54 holes, and we're coming back at nine o'clock tomorrow, and finish our round and that's it.

GREG NORMAN: No. Nine holes tomorrow, finish our round, finish, 54 holes.

GREG NORMAN: That guy is pretty smart back there. (Laughter.) Whatever. 72 holes or 54, it doesn't bother me. I'm in a pretty good position right now.

GREG NORMAN: No, not really. We're fortunate to get where we are. It's been the longest 18 holes, it's taken us three days -- we still haven't finished 18 holes. So sometimes I think it's frustrating, but I'm playing well enough to pick it up where I left off today. I knew the putt on 14, for example, I could see the rainstorm coming in, and that putt was probably the putt I needed to make the most all day long, because you knew there was going to be a rain delay, and you knew things were going to stop because of how dark the cloud was. Making that 5-footer was important. I'm ready. We couldn't have teed off anyway, there was a group on the tee, and we would have had to wait another 15, 20 minutes to play. My day was done when I made that putt.

GREG NORMAN: Like I said, I've been hitting a lot of good putts, making good strokes, I haven't been worried about my stroke, per se. And it was a matter of just staying with it. Sooner or later they've got to drop in. There's nothing like I've got anything to worry about. You go through a patch where sometimes you don't make putts. You hit a lot of good putts and they don't go in. Today, I hit fairly close to the holes, too, so it made it a little easier, as well.

GREG NORMAN: No, it's not going to destroy my rhythm anymore than it's going to destroy the other guys that are leading the tournament; they've got more holes to play, which gives them more chances to make birdies, yes, but it also gives them more chances not to make birdies, mistakes. I'm on the 15th tee, so I know what I've got to do. I've got to make at least another two birdies before I finish to give myself a good chance.

GREG NORMAN: Every hole. Actually you fire at the top of the flag, because you know the ball is going to go four or five -- 15 feet behind the flag it's going to back on up.

GREG NORMAN: No, most of the time you get in a little jumper off the fairways, anyway, because there's so much moisture. We aren't allowed to play lift clean and place. With that moisture in there, most of the time the ball will fly an extra five or six yards. So you've got to calculate that.

GREG NORMAN: It would have to be, yeah, because you like to get out and get the job done, over and done with.

GREG NORMAN: No, it hasn't affected me, because I've been out here long enough and had enough rain delays that I know how to react. Some days you feel great, and some days it's hard to get going again. When a rain delay comes in, nothing you can do about it, you just accept it. It's hard when you wake up early in the morning, 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning to get the deal going, and you sit around and you can't do anything like we did today, that's pretty hard, because you get a little tired from four or five hours, you don't know whether to go to sleep until the middle of the morning, because you don't know what the plan is, if it's going to be two o'clock, we don't know whether we're going to play at two o'clock, so it's a waiting game. You've got to entertain your mind.

GREG NORMAN: Well, all I've done is really delegated. My business is still there, just that I've delegated. I put the responsibility on individuals in my company. And I made a few changes. I'm bringing a guy over for Australia that's worked for me over there a while to be president of my company, and he's worked for me a couple of years. And then one of my guys here, Frank Williams, is going to go back to Australia and become executive vice-president of GWS down there. And then I'm going to keep one of the other guys I've had here all along in the operations -- so it's just a matter of reorganizing, making sure the guys get the right responsibilities on their plate. I don't need to be doing all the work. I shouldn't say I'm doing all the work anyway, but I feel like I'm doing four or five different things that I shouldn't be doing. And I just came to the realization that you can't be good at everything. And so you want to make sure that you put the right people in the right place to take the right responsibilities and quite honestly a good executive only needs to make about three or four decisions a year, because all the other people should be doing their jobs for me. So that's basically what I've done. I've just delegated, reorganized and everybody is extremely happy in my company.

GREG NORMAN: Well, I was spending about eight hours in the office on my days off. I enjoy doing that, but I don't need to do that. But I'm very much a hands-on individual, too. It's very difficult for me to let it go, as well. But -- because I like to know exactly what's going on, with my name and with decisions that are made. But at the end of the day I can't know exactly what's going on, because there's a few things that you don't see, and you don't need to see, because they don't eventually come to fruition. So those type of things you waste your time spending time on, when other people can be wasting their time spending time on it (laughter.) I love it.

GREG NORMAN: No. The most important shot is the tee shot on 15. If I hit that long and straight that's setting myself up, that's the most important shot. I never do think about the shot after that shot, because you never know what that shot is going to be until you hit the first shot. So I always play one shot at a time. I won't do anything different in my preparation in the morning. I'll still go out there and hit the same number of balls, I'll stretch and work out a little before I tee off and treat it like it's 18 holes.

GREG NORMAN: No incentive. I've never been a believer in this. I've been consistent in this statement, 10 years, or however long the ranking system has been around. My life doesn't revolve around the Sony rankings. I'm not a believer in it. I'll be a believer in the ranking system when we all play together on the same tournament. It's difficult when you've got 20 or 30 guys playing in Europe. You've got 20 or 30 guys playing in Japan. And you've got 40 guys playing here in the United States. You've got a hundred of the best players in the world spread all around the world and we only play in four or five tournaments a year, if that, and really, quite honestly, it's the TPC and the PGA Championship, where you have the top 50 players in the world playing. If you take that into consideration, how can you have a ranking system? So I've never been a believer. I don't go out there and make it a destiny in my life, saying, okay, I'm going to lose it this week if I don't play well. I go out and try to play the best golf I can play every time and everything else would take its place.

GREG NORMAN: Tom Lehman passed me in Spain, that doesn't make a factor, either. There are going to be athletes in the game of golf that are going to come do their thing and play well, and as I say, that's going to take care of itself, the ranking system or whatever you do. If you perform well on the golf course, everything else off the golf course takes care of itself.

GREG NORMAN: Three, maybe four. How many did I play in Australia, Andrew?

GREG NORMAN: So I played two overseas, then, Japan and Spain.

GREG NORMAN: To keep winning. Winning is the best medicine any athlete could ever have, whether you're a golfer, or a tennis player or the two athletes running off today, by the way who won that race?

GREG NORMAN: Pulled off a million.

GREG NORMAN: Rematch to come, right, two million? But winning is the best medicine anybody can have. Long as you just keep going out there and keep trying to win, and when you do win, that's all it's about.

GREG NORMAN: No, I wasn't going to play golf tomorrow, if we weren't playing, I would go back to Florida. I wasn't going to go to the Kemper Open until Wednesday. It makes no -- it hasn't got any effect on me, just the fact that I'm not going to be home tonight. I'll be home tomorrow afternoon.

GREG NORMAN: I would like to birdie 50 percent of the holes. I would like to birdie all four. But from a numbers point of view, I've always thought what I needed when I walked off 14, I knew at that stage if I could birdie 15, then I could keep going. So two more is a very realistic possibility.

GREG NORMAN: No, I don't think so. Well, it depends on whether the wind blows from the opposite direction. It was downwind today, you could have easily driven it to the top of the hill and had about a 3-iron or 4-iron into the green.

GREG NORMAN: It's going to be tight whether you're there today or in the morning. I'm going to be loose in the morning. My body will be ready to play. I might be fresher tomorrow morning, because I've been awake since 4:30 or 5 o'clock this morning.

GREG NORMAN: No, Cobra does that. My two principal operations that I'm really involved in is the golf course design and my clothing line. Now, I have other companies that I'm involved with, my sod farm business would come in a close second or third in that one, which I really enjoy doing. We look at expanding all that all the time. I look at grasses. I've been more of an agronomist than I expected myself to ever become. Those three there are probably the principle three.

GREG NORMAN: Avon Park, South Florida.

GREG NORMAN: Bart Collins.

GREG NORMAN: Yes.

GREG NORMAN: Yes. Frank always wanted to go back to Australia after five years of being here, and I fulfilled his wishes, because he spent a lot of time being down there. And Bart being an American would like to come over here. His wife is American, and he'd like the kids to grow up in America, of course. So it was a perfect swap around for both of them, they're extremely happy about it.

GREG NORMAN: Bart will start here the third of July, say Independence Day. And Frank will start the first of January down in Australia.

GREG NORMAN: No, I've got a condo right across the road. I actually never even left the -- I called here at I think it was 6:15 when it was pouring down rain, and they said, stop.

GREG NORMAN: I imagine they would have been.

GREG NORMAN: Just knowing it, knowing the shots I've hit. You can feed off those things, knowing the conditions, knowing where I drive the ball under wet conditions, knowing how the greens react, knowing where the pin positions are, those type of things you become very familiar with, very comfortable with.

WES SEELEY: Do birdies and bogeys.

GREG NORMAN: 7th hole -- you just want the birdies, do you? 6-iron into about 9 feet. The 8th hole hit an 8-iron to about 5 feet. 11, I hit a pitching wedge to about 6 feet. 12, hit 9-iron to about 18 feet. 13, 5-iron to 18 feet. 14, a sand wedge to five feet.

GREG NORMAN: That was yesterday. 4, I hit a 4-iron to 5 feet. 5, I hit a sand wedge to about 18 feet.

GREG NORMAN: Maybe, yeah. I know he's coming out for the U.S. Open.

GREG NORMAN: I missed about a three and a half footer there.