Insider Rowing

Way of the Shark is a biography of the iconic golfer and businessman, Greg Norman. I knew almost nothing about Norman prior to reading this book, except that he was an Australian golfer and that his company made golf shirts with a shark logo. Co-written with Donald T. Phillips, Way of the Shark is solid as a sports biography but really makes its contribution as a guide about business and entrepreneurship. The first half or so of the book details Norman’s upbringing, his struggles trying to make it as a pro golfer, and finally breaking into the big time as one of the sports most successful golfers–he spent 331 consecutive weeks as the #1 ranked player in the world. The book shifts gradually from the golf and moves fully into Norman’s entrepreneurial ventures.

He hits major home runs as a businessman, and eventually becomes far more successful in this arena than as an athlete. He builds a worldwide portfolio that does $300 million in business yearly, and amasses a personal fortune that is estimated upwards of $300M. Some of his successful ventures includes the Greg Norman Collection, a clothing and lifestyle line; Medallist Estates, a real estate development company; Greg Norman Estates, a highly regarded winemaking company; Greg Norman Golf Course Design, and others. Consider that the net worth of Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan clock in at $300M and $400M respectively, and you get a sense of the company the Shark is keeping.

The sections on business strongly remind me of Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal in terms of level of detail. The authors go into some depth into how deals are made and structured, which takes it way past the type of simple advice or principles of business you find in other sports/business books. I gained a lot of insight into the process of entrepreneurship. Are you interested in starting your own business? Check out this book. You’ll learn quite a bit about networking, branding and leveraging. Norman created his own brand (Great White Shark) and leveraged that image into a massive business empire. I was pleasantly surprised by Way of the Shark, and I rank it as one of the better sports books out there.

The writing is sharp and consistently holds the voice of Norman throughout.