Before Tiger Woods started as a pro, he was approached by then IMG agent, Hughes Norton in 1989. In their first meeting, Woods showed him his room and Norton was stunned at Kultida Woods’s strict rule of throwing away Woods’s junior trophies. Nonetheless, after their first meeting, Norton and Woods’ father – Earl Woods, kept in contact until Norton left the 15-time major champion’s team in 1998. However, before that Tiger’s rise in the junior circuit started.

From 1991 to 1996, the 48-year-old won six USGA championships, the U.S. Junior Amateur and the U.S. Amateur, consecutively. But when Norton met Woods he was only 12 years old and in those times, golfers didn’t turn pro until they were halfway through college. So it meant Norton had to wait at least eight to ten years before representing him as he recounted at the Golfer’s Journal podcast. Norton contemplated if he would be patient enough to keep that relationship alive until then. But he didn’t break the contact and met them every once in a while.

Out of the six USGA events he won, Norton was present at two of those. Although he accepted that Woods’s record would never be replicated, he still thought that Woods would find somebody who would shoot better than him but it never happened and the junior golfer just started winning. And Norton thought to himself, “Earl is kind of full of it.” You’d be wondering full of what? The ex-agent explained that from the very start, Earl Woods always said, “Tiger’s the chosen one. He’s going to change the world, not just golf.” Norton thought Earl Woods was going overboard with his predictions, but as Woods presented himself to be unbeatable, Norton said to himself, “This is real.”

So it was proven that in match play, Woods was a beast who would not be defeated as even after being behind four to five strokes in those USGA events, he always came back. But how would he finish in stroke play when debuts as a pro? By 1996, Woods turned pro, and naturally, Norton became his agent. As an excellent agent, Norton started looking for sponsor exemption only when the 82-time PGA Tour winner was 17. That’s when Woods’s struggle started and the contracts with Nike and Titleist became a bit uncertain. So what happened?

The history behind Tiger Woods’s $60 million contract with Nike & Titleist

Hughes Norton remembered that as he was finding the sponsor exemptions, during that time, Tiger Woods started at Stanford. Eventually, Norton was successful in getting those exemptions for at least eight events. However, when Woods began playing his first stroke play tournaments, he missed the cut in seven of them.

It was quite shocking and the naysayers got the chance to say that okay, Woods was a great match play golfer but making a cut isn’t a piece of cake, not for him. While the 48-year-old was getting criticized, Norton was looking for a $60 million contract with Nike and Titleist. But Norton said the missed cut was, “That was actually one of the hardest, the biggest impediment” for Woods’ career to grow. Nike was new to golf but Titleist was not.

They told Norton, “You want me to pay three or four times, what I’m paying our top player, right now, for a kid that can’t make a cut on the [PGA] Tour?” Although the equipment giant was skeptical, defying all odds, Norton closed the deal and it became history of how Woods then became the next best thing in golf. The two parted ways in 1998, however, their partnership stays iconic for many reasons but one!