Golf is notoriously fickle - and Greg Norman knows its peaks of success and troughs of failure better than anyone. There is probably no finer example in modern golf than Greg Norman of the value of picking oneself, dusting oneself off, and getting on with it again. And making heaps and heaps of cash as well...

 

Say what you like about all those No. 2 finishes in major championships - Greg Norman is an undisputed winner in the both the games of life and golf.

 

Golf is full of rags to riches tales, but how about Norman, who started out making 38 dollars a week in a Queensland pro shop in 1975 and today sits atop of a fortune estimated at $500 million?

 

When Greg was learning to play golf, the renowned Australian instructor Charlie Earp advised him to "hit the ball as hard as you possibly can" ... and they'd work on straightening out his shots later.

 

Soon Norman was long and straight - and was on his way to becoming not just an Australian national treasure, but a global icon.

 

Ruggedly handsome and square-shouldered, but with a blokey charm that proved irresistible, the massive-hitting, photogenic Norman was dubbed the "Great White Shark" at the 1981 Masters by a zealous reporter. It stuck.

 

And the major championships everyone predicted arrived in the end. Norman won two British Opens, in '86 at Turnberry and '93 at Royal St George's with near flawless golf. Those Open titles are among 86 worldwide victories for Norman, who was the world's No. 1 for 331 weeks and whom Peter Thomson called "golfs first pop star."

 

Now that Norman rarely competes due to back problems, unfortunately, the legacy of his golf career will probably be all the majors that got away from him.

 

The Shark finished No. 2 in majors eight times in 88 starts, but he never slipped into the runner-up slot quietly. Norman's No. 2s were either explosive (when Bob Tway holed out a bunker shot to steal the '86 PGA Championship, and Larry Mize beat the Shark at the '87 Masters with a 40-metre chip) - or implosive (the gut-wrenching 78 that Norman shot in the final round at Augusta in 1996, giving the green jacket to a grateful Nick Faldo).

 

But the Shark never stops fighting. A keen individualist, Norman has been in more than his share of scraps with the PGA Tour and its iron-fisted supremo, Tim Finchem - so much so that even last year Norman was trying to force the PGA Tour to open its financial books to its membership.

 

He was also famously at the vanguard of an ill-advised backroom deal with Fox television in 1994 for a $25 million breakaway "World Tour", prematurely announced during Norman's Shark Shootout tournament in California. And it fizzled in the face of a wagging finger of disapproval of golf's godfather, Arnold Palmer, and shrugs of indifference from pros like Faldo, Ernie Els and Ben Crenshaw, who had been courted by Norman and Fox with furtive advances - notes under hotel room doors. But the rank and file weren't ready to turn their backs on the PGA Tour hand that fed them to follow Norman's star power.

 

But for each setback, Norman has proven just as formidable in battling back, especially in the boardroom. He's a wizard in business - the Tiger Woods brand is growing exponentially, but it's nothing near as relentless as the Norman brand in the relentless pursuit of your money.

 

As chief of Great White Shark Enterprises Inc., Norman reigns over an empire that does a bit of everything, from golf course design, to winemaking, sportswear, restaurants, and turf grass development. Says Norman: "You're only limited by your own imagination and belief."

 

In fact, Greg Norman may be one of the most intelligent men to have walked the fairways of golf's highest plateau in decades. Consider this: He bought his mansion on Florida's ultra-exclusive Jupiter Island in 1991 for $4.9 million. In the wake of Norman's divorce after 25 years of marriage to Laura Andrassy, the luxury pad is up for sale $65 million. That's profit in real estate, mate.

Never mind that the divorce was messy - Norman notoriously changed the locks at the Jupiter Island estate in a bid to force a better settlement out of his wife.

 

As Norman might say: You lose some, but then you win some. Case in point - in September 2007, divorce settled, the Shark announced his intent to marry his new girlfriend, the tennis legend Chrissy Evert. That's classic Norman.