worth reading What Goes Up . . .

The world of golf has never really known anyone like Greg Norman.

Norman reached higher than the other professional golfers of his era, as if he'd been born to seek the most rarefied air. His ambition tested the limits that bound his rivals. He understood the power of branding and the tricks of marketing, and he became, like a concept in a fantasy world, a force that could always be with you. He didn't just bring a few thrills to our mundane lives. He designed our clothes, built our houses, raised our beef, bottled our wine, and designed our golf courses. He taught us how to play golf and occasionally how to love it, even the miseries of it. He went farther than any golfer before him and blazed trails for those who envied his success.

Along the way, Norman built an empire. He became a conglomerate, a veritable multinational corporation who put his pants on one leg at a time. He rubbed shoulders with presidents and hobnobbed with royalty. He married a tennis champion. He flew as high as a golfer had ever flown.

And he became a very rich man, a man with pockets so deep that he could even make someone else -- his first wife -- wealthy beyond belief.

But today, it appears that Norman is falling to earth.

His design business, which was once lavishly supported by a buoyant housing market, has fallen on hard times. Norman's firm has little or no work in the United States, and a couple of months ago, to cut costs, it was forced to close its design office in Australia.

"I've got a lot of money out there that is not being paid," Norman recently groused to the Wall Street Journal.

Welcome to the real world, Greg.

The Journal calls its account of Norman's current troubles "White Shark's Crash Course." In the story, Richard Gillis reports that Norman's firm currently has 45 golf courses under contract, though only 14 of them are actually under construction. The other 31 are either "dormant," which is another word for dead, or "in the planning stage," a phrase that nowadays usually translates as "on the back burner indefinitely."

Of course, such synopses don't really qualify as "news." I'm sure that nobody reading this blog will be surprised to learn that the golf design industry is suffering. There's pain everywhere.

More important, are Norman's struggles, as Gillis contends, "a sign that something is very wrong with the golf business"?

Gillis' story doesn't really support that claim, and I don't buy it. Should Norman's firm be immune from the economic maladies that have crippled the industry? If so, why? Doesn't Norman come to the table with plenty of competitive advantages that, say, Kyle Phillips, Tim Liddy, Mike Nuzzo, and other, lesser known architects don't have? Are Norman's problems more important than those of Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, or Rees Jones?

In fact, is it possible that Norman's pain is actually a sign of the golf industry's improving health? Could it be that his firm is hurting because, in a time of extremely tight money, developers are taking a closer look at architects who can design courses that are cheaper to build and maintain? Maybe Norman's business has fallen off because the era of "prestige" golf courses -- those created primarily to sell over-priced houses -- is over.

Or is Norman simply falling out of favor as a designer? After all, some of the most celebrated golf courses that have opened in recent years were designed by such architects as Tom Doak, Gil Hanse, and the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. Maybe these "rising stars" are moving up on the desirability scale while Norman moves down. It happens. Tastes change. Ask Tom Fazio.

So don't cry for Greg Norman, even if the Wall Street Journal wants you to. In fact, Norman is probably hurting less these days than most other architects are, because doors open for him in places where his competitors aren't even allowed to knock.

Besides, Norman is a conglomerate. If his design division has to tread water for a while, he can still sell primo Australian beef and shiraz and shark-logo polo shirts. And he's still got plenty of money, not to mention a wealth of corporate connections, to keep him on his feet. Heck, he's trying to buy Valderrama Golf Club.

Greg Norman may be falling to earth, but he clearly isn't going to land with a thud.