Greg Norman, a brash 21-year-old looking for cash, won his first professional golf tournament title in 1976 at the Grange in Adelaide.
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Norman, a brash 68-year-old, returned to the Grange on Thursday. Cash is no longer an issue.
Some reports suggest Norman is being paid $75 million a year as chief executive officer and commissioner of the breakaway circuit LIV Golf.
His net worth is estimated at $600 million. He was the first person in PGA Tour history to surpass $10 million in career earnings.
All a far cry from the 21-year-old version of Norman who won the West Lakes Classic at the Grange in 1976.
"I thought that golf was an easy game to make money," he said at the time when collecting his first winner's cheque, $7000.
And he added: "I felt a lot of pressure but abandoned my defensive play."
Norman has lived by those sentiments.
Through 91 professional golf victories including two majors; business enterprises - golf course design, apparel, wine, restaurants, real estate development and more - to LIV Golf, Norman has been called many things.
But never a defensive player.
Norman admitted to "a lot of emotion" when returning to the Grange for LIV Golf's first Australian tournament, starting on Friday.
"I have to kind of take a step back because it's all about what LIV, the league, and what we're doing here this week," Norman told reporters on Thursday.
"But also I realise that there was a powerful impact that I made to myself ... winning the third golf tournament I ever played in my life.
"This was the catalyst ... if I didn't win the West Lakes Classic in '76, I wouldn't have had that injection of massive amount of confidence to go on and continue my career."
Norman, as the public face of Saudi Arabian-funded LIV Golf, is now pilloried or praised - depending on what side of golf's great schism people sit.
It matters little to the man himself, who channels Kerry Packer's role in another great sporting schism, Australia's rebel World Series Cricket.
"Look what Kerry Packer did with cricket," Norman said.
"God bless him. He sits on my right shoulder every day, trust me, every day.
"He goes: 'son, you're doing a good bloody job'. I would say another word he always says, but ..."
Norman said like Packer with cricket, he realised a "starvation" of the value of golf existed.
"Everywhere you go, golf is a force for good," he said.
"I really am blessed that I have found a career and I've found an opportunity, as I look out into the future of my business world, about what golf has given me, this opportunity.
"I'm here for that reason and that reason only.
"I have been asked this question a lot about my legacy.
"And I truly believe that my legacy from 20 years ago to my legacy today is two totally different things.
"My legacy of what I'm doing with LIV will be my legacy because it's the right thing to do."
Norman said those sentiments strengthened during Thursday's pro-am at the Grange.
Such was the demand for the sold-out LIV tournament days on Friday to Sunday, organisers sold tickets for the pro-am for the first time.
"The number of kids that are out there ... they're coming up to me and going 'thank you, thank you, thank you'," Norman said.
"I go 'oh, my gosh, there it is, this is what it's all about'."
Norman wanted a LIV event in Australia as soon as he was approached to be LIV's head honcho.
"Why? Because I have truly believed ... Australia really has never seen the best of the best on a consistent, regular basis," he said.
"Yeah, we've had the Presidents Cup here. Yeah, we've had the World Cup here, we have events down here, there's no question.
"But an event of this magnitude ... has never been delivered here before.
"We are not coming in here just flashing and burning and disappearing ... it's a partnership with the country but it's a partnership for the game of golf."
Norman appealed to forget "all the white noise that everybody writes about and talks about" regarding Saudi Arabia's funding, human rights abuses and sports-washing.
"This is all about the game of golf and what's good for the game of golf and what's good for the local region," he said.
"From my perspective, having the ability to be able to move the needle in that direction ... is very, very powerful and poignant."
Australian Associated Press
