Quad Questions With Hughes Norton

Longtime IMG agent discusses the golf business and his new book Rainmaker.

The nothing-to-gain tone of Hughes Norton’s new memoir makes it a fascinating and unusual read in a world of generally soulless sports biographies. And there’s certainly plenty of justifiable humblebragging and introspection to make Rainmaker juicy without ever feeling greasy.

The longtime IMG agent handled Tiger Woods’ emergence onto the professional scene but later willingly vanished from the profession after being unceremoniously fired by his young client. A Golf World cover story by Tim Rosaforte may have irked Woods who, at well publicized times, has appeared uncomfortable with others getting too much credit for his success (even as a vast majority acknowledged his hard work, skill and devotion-to-craft as the source of his success). In Rainmaker’s dramatic retelling of the firing, Norton lays out how the sacking went down but also details how many deals came together in a compelling manner. In particular, he explains how Earl Woods came to work for IMG. It’s complimentary of the elder Woods’ eye for golf talent and was fully vetted. The tale also reminds readers just how little agents were scouting future talent in the not-so-distant past.

Some of Norton’s assessments may be shocking for the genteel golf world, but he’s retired and has kept quiet a long time. Rainmaker is the rare “tell-all” that leaves the reader feeling like they got the full story. He reveals deal points of all kinds that business minds will find fascinating. Some he admits were bold, some he regrets and most he takes pride in when helping clients or influencing the way sports business was conducted.

In a business today where so many “team” members rarely admit defeat or—gasp—mistakes, Norton makes clear there are several clients he wish he’d done more for or had better understood. Several more were recruited away or only stayed with IMG for a short time. They’re all discussed. But he’s never complaining. Just telling his story.

Working with longtime Golf Magazine and current Links editor George Peper, the book capitalizes on the current “money-grab” mess highlighted in its sub-title: Superagent Hughes Norton and the Money-Grab Explosion of Golf from Tiger to LIV and Beyond. Norton rarely gets bogged down on any subject, including today’s state of affairs. Multiple sidebars throughout sometimes are annoyances in such a fast moving read. But they did not fit the main story and Peper suggesting placing the random bits in a different format. This makes it easy to pick up the book for occasional nuggets of business wisdom or to read lighter tales about some of IMG’s legendary clients and moments.

With a Harvard degree and inside access to longtime IMG boss Mark McCormack, Norton also weaves in his practical sports business and agenting advice that anyone in business will enjoy. But make no mistake: with his two biggest ex-clients Woods and Greg Norman on a crash course over the future of golf, Rainmaker will remain relevant for years to come while the saga drags on.

Norton kindly spoke to The Quadrilateral about how he finally decided to write the book and much more.

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Quad: Tell us how you decided to do a book after being silent so long?

HN: It literally never ended my mind to do a book. After I got fired by Mark [McCormick], I got a nice severance package but I was prohibited from not only working in sports management anywhere else, but talking about what had happened at IMG for 10 years. So now it's 2008 and the grandkids are coming along and I had been away from everything for so long. But I still thought, that's sort of ancient history and just went on with my life. Which was 180 degrees from the driven, hard charging—whatever you want to call it—life I’d lived. Friends that have known me said, “what happened to you?” Why aren't you back in force and in business? Basically I’d had enough. Then two years ago, a young agent that used to work at IMG, named Chris Mullhaupt who represents the Korda sisters and a couple other young players and I were playing golf, and Chris said, “there's this podcast called No Laying Up. It's really cool about golf.” I'm a dinosaur. I couldn't even spell podcast at that point. But I said, “okay.”

So I go on this podcast and it was fun. Chris Solomon’s a good guy. I really have tried to take the high road and not say anything bad or good about past business relationships, but I also never thought of protecting what I knew for a book. And then for a month after—this is February 2022—I'd see people on the street here where I live or at the club and I couldn't believe the number of people who just randomly came up saying “that podcast was really cool.” And somebody sent me a social media thing where somebody I didn't know said to Chris Solomon, “this is one of the best podcasts you've ever done. I never heard of this guy Hughes Norton, but he should write a book.”

George Peper and I were friends way back all through the years and he also sent an email, saying, “Hughes, great podcast, is it finally time?” I started thinking I’m not getting any younger. And everything kind of clicked in. It had been 50 years since I started with IMG, 25 years since I got fired by Tiger [Woods] and Mark. And I didn't have any idea how to write a book. George knew this great literary agency in New York and Jim Nantz seconded them to me because Scott Waxman did Jim's book Always By My Side in 2008. Susan Canavan, our agent, says “Hey, this is a great story, but I’ve got to have a sample chapter, an introduction and an outline.”

And then I sent Rick Reilly a sample chapter. He’s a pal from way back and he said, “Nobody's going to buy this.” I said, “Why?” He said, “There’s no dirt in here.” Right about then, and it was completely serendipitous, the LIV war started blowing up and Susan was smart enough refine her pitch. The two protagonists in this war? Who knows Greg and Tiger better than the guy that was their agent for all these years? And that's when Valentine got very interested and finally, Simon and Schuster.

Quad: What was your working process with George Peper in managing to set a forthright but not vindictive tone?

HN: We didn't know what we were doing! My go-to thing with George was, “This has got to be authentic. I'm going to tell the good and the bad.” He knew me when I was on the other side of the table pitching Curtis Strange as a playing editor at Golf Magazine. He’d seen me negotiate. We were friends enough that he asked me to go on that crazy St. Andrews-Winged Foot-Pebble Beach odyssey in 22 hours. So we were of kindred spirits.

I wanted people to really see behind the scenes where a sports agent succeeds and where he screws up. So I think that came through. And I could not have done this with any other person because none of 'em knew me like George, and he’s writing in my voice.

I'm subjectively involved in this, but it seems to me that it’s an interesting three-way narrative because we go into what McCormick was doing with IMG, and meanwhile, how Deane Beman was coming up with all these brilliant things at the tour. So I think anybody that likes golf will enjoy reliving the history and, for some of the younger readers, learning the various parts of the story.

Quad: Readers will have to buy the book to get your full LIV assessment. But obviously your timing is impeccable as we’re headed towards a Norman v. Woods showdown over LIV. But because Mark McCormick was a singular business mind thinking about something like a world tour long before any of the people today, what he would make of the current mess?

HN: He was such a visionary. He was two steps ahead of everybody all the time throughout his life. And a perfect example is the little sidebar we do on LIV before LIV and Greg Norman's World Tour “idea.” Sorry, Greg, Mark thought this up in 1964 and was smart enough, by the way, when he got resistance from Arnold [Palmer], to understand the resistance and dropped it. But he would, first of all, rue the day that Jay Monahan and company told the Saudis to go to hell at the very beginning when they wanted to approach.

Mark, seeing things maybe that other people don’t see, would say, “don't piss off somebody with $700 billion in an investment fund that's interested in your product.” And the Tour had been a monopoly for so long, honestly, I guess you can't blame Monahan and company for telling them to go to hell. But we’ve seen what happened as a result. Mark would've figured out some way, and say, “Look, the first thing you have to do is keep somebody like this interested. They can really help our product here if we just aren't hostile. And secondly, we went through this in tennis with the wars of the federations and the players union, but Mark would say “pretty soon the only place that all the great players in tennis convened was the four Grand Slams.”

The settlement process now seems to be dragging on forever, but Mark would have said sooner rather than later, “we’ve got to solve this, eat some crow and nobody's going to get exactly what they want.” He was a great conciliatory person in that regard.

When I see that Bahamas meeting a few days ago and I see them come out of it with nothing? I don't know who's being difficult? It might be Yasir [Al-Rumayyan] on the other side of the table, but for God's sake, get it done. Golf has got to be really careful here because we've seen it in tennis and fans aren't going to put up with a tour where the best aren't playing the best more often. Mark would be very much, “Hey, do something and let's move on.”

Quad: I know you haven't been at a lot of tournaments in years after traveling so much during your IMG time, but agents have changed a lot. Some are still very nice people to deal with. Shrewd, open-minded, forward-thinking, et cetera. But there are quite a few who are openly hostile to everybody, never leave their client out of their sight, and are probably to blame for some of the mess pro golf is in because they looked out for their interests over clients or the sport. Did you see this approach coming and did it inspire your decision to leave the business?

HN: This came after I left. When I was out there, there weren’t many other agents. When it became clear that I was going to represent Tiger, the Woods family went to Vinny Giles and said, “what do you think of this Nike deal?” And they went to Rocky Hambric and that was it. Yes, there were other smaller shops, but if there were six firms in the mid 1990s, it may have been too many. And we were always the gorilla in the room.

But to answer your question, I think they're all scared to death. They think if they go home for a weekend somebody's going to steal their client.

But agents like Chris Mullhaupt tell me, and you've seen it, how many people are around a player on the range now. Every time I hear this, it's my pet peeve. It started in tennis with 14-year-olds saying, “I want to thank my team.” And you look up there and there's six people in their box. I mean, give me a break! So now these golfers all say thanks to my team who are all around a guy hitting balls. The sports psychologist, his nutritionist, his putting coach, his caddie, his agent, maybe his financial manager, his swim coach, and then a fan can't see the player!

Maybe that's this old man telling people to get off my lawn. I don't know. But the agents organize all these guys for him, which McCormick would have a field day with. Because you remember when, in the book, when he decided to put all the experts in house, each of these people now are putting their hand out to the guy. He's paying them all separately. It's nuts. It's like we've gone back to the past.

Quad: There are a lot of athletes, Tiger included at times, who become irrationally annoyed at the notion of team members or media making a cent off of them or getting notoriety because of them. As you document in the book, circumstantial evidence suggests this was what caused your firing but you still don’t really know. Have you ever contemplated why certain athletes get that way? Is it isolation or is it just a certain personality flaw?