The Pellucid Perspective - December 2016 - 17

THE LAST WORD

The Donald and the Shark: Brothers from
another mother

hen someone called my attention recently to Greg Norman's promise to "disrupt the
golf world completely" and to "break this
cast iron that's been wrapped around the
game" during an in-depth interview retrospective of his career on Golf.com, I
had the strangest feeling that I'd seen and
heard this movie before, and not very long
ago at that. Then it hit me - Norman's
grandiose promises, with no supporting
details (although he promised to summon
the media to his offices midway through
the second quarter of 2017 to explain)
reminded me of a certain President-elect
who rode into office on the coattails of
"I'll Make America Great Again" with
virtually zero explanation of how he'd do
that other than through the force of his
not-inconsiderable will. Pursuing that
thought further, it struck me that if not
literally, at least in spirit Donald Trump
and Greg Norman are brothers from another mother.
Think about it. Both have large and diverse business empires featuring many of
the same products - real estate development, apparel, wine and steaks to name a
few. Both are involved in commercial ventures globally. Both exposed their wives
to highly publicized affairs with celebrities (Marla Maples, Chris Evert) before
marrying and shortly afterward divorcing those paramours. Both are known for
their aggressive and attacking style in the
endeavors that first made them famous.
Both have tackled television with varying degrees of success (although Trump
wins that match), and both will happily
slap their names on virtually any product
as long as the price is right. Both have
distinctive brands - the Trump name was
ubiquitous long before he ran for President and Great White Shark is one of
the all-time sport-cum-business brand
names. And of course there is golf, where
Norman is one of the all-time great players and Trump clubs boast some of the
all-time greatest initiation fees and ratings on the glitz-meter.

www.PellucidCorp.com

To be fair, or to illustrate some exceptions that prove the rule, the two do have
some differences. While Norman has
served as a coach and advisor to China's
national golf team and development program, Trump seems to be lining up with
Russia (although he claims to have lots
of "great friends" and business partners in
China as well). Both have distinctive hair,
but Norman's is a strikingly natural looking white-blond, Trump's is, uh, some sort
of orange-ish color and apparently welded
in place. In terms of golf itself, Norman
has recently campaigned for a relaxing of

Both have tackled
television with varying
degrees of success
(although Trump wins
that match), and both
will happily slap their
names on virtually any
product as long as the
price is right.
the behavioral rules and generally snooty
air still present at many clubs and courses,
while The Donald calls golf an "aspirational sport" and feels there's nothing
wrong with its participation being limited
to those who can afford it and are willing
and able to become reasonably good at it.
In the spirit of the day, former colleague and golf industry pundit Harvey
Silverman sent me some "fake news" he'd
created outlining what the golf industry
is supposedly going to be in for during
the Trump Presidency. According to the
"news" release, the Trump administration
will be nationalizing all public and municipal U.S. golf courses, which will subsequently be run under the authority of
the Department of the Interior.
And, what would "fake news" be without a fake quote:
"Frankly, I'm tired of driving by and

flying over dumpy golf courses," said
President-Elect Trump."Golfers deserve
better. We will close at least half, maybe
75%, who knows maybe 90% of these
wastes of grass and build regional Trump
National golf facilities. Golf is a sport
of aspiration, and no one aspires to play
crappy golf courses. I'll make golf great
again by building the world's best courses
and charging tons of money to play them.
This will inspire more people to get better
jobs so they can afford to play. Next, I'll
look at skiing."
Public courses that think they have
what it takes to become a Trump National facility can send an application, along
with a processing fee of $1 million, to the
MGGA (Making Golf Great Again) division of the U.S. Interior Department,
care of Trump Tower, New York City,
New York.
I'll reiterate that the above is indeed
fake, just in case there's someone on the
Trump legal team with time on his hands
and nobody to sue that day, but if I have
to do it for the benefit of any of you, I
have sorely misjudged the intelligence of
the Pellucid readership.
Returning to the suspense regarding
Norman's promise to disrupt the golf
world completely, supposedly to be revealed sometime in mid-May, the only
reasonable speculation to date is that it
may have something to do with a longterm business relationship recently announced between Norman and telecom
giant Verizon. Others brought up Norman's previous attempt to put together a
World Golf Tour, which never came to
pass and was quickly co-opted by Tim
Finchem and the PGA Tour and turned
into the series of World Golf Championship (WGC) tournament events. On the
other hand, it's hard to see how another
golf Tour would "break this cast iron
that's been wrapped around the game."
So, I guess unless WikiLeaks blows the
lid off it before then, we'll have to wait
and see what the Shark has in store for us.
-Jim Dunlap

The Pellucid Perspective

http://www.Golf.com http://www.PellucidcorP.com

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