Greg Norman on Why Trump is a Hole-in-One for Small Business in America
Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman discussed why, as a small business owner, he sees President Trump as good for business in America.
“He’s good for what’s happening here in the United States today. We’re already seeing the unlocking or the reduction in regulation, especially in my business – I’m a small business [owner],” Norman told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
According to Norman, the rise in business investment shows not only an increase in small business owners’ confidence, but consumers’ optimism as well as they spend more of their disposable income.
“[In the] golf course design business, we’re starting to see the trend, people want to not specifically build new golf courses but redo old golf courses. Reinvest money back in there, that tells you that the membership of the golf clubs are coming back, their disposable income’s coming back, they want to spend more time.”
With the positive economic sentiment among small business owners and consumers, Norman said a key issue for the golf industry is how to boost participation from the current 25 million golfers.
“Our initiative now is how do we get where we were at a peak in the United States at 30 million golfers 10 years ago.”
Norman also observed an increasing amount of money coming back to the U.S. from overseas.
“We’re actually starting to see some of the trillions of dollars that are offshore starting to come back slowly. Not to the magnitude of hundreds of millions of dollars in my business, but in smaller increments, so that’s telling you people are starting to reinvest back into America.”
Norman also weighed in on the increasing use of technology in the sport of golf.
“We can create smart golf courses. They’ve created smart cities, take that technology and bring it down to golf courses. And if we can reduce maintenance costs by a percentage, if it’s a double-digit percentage, great.”
And with the cost savings through the use of technology, Norman predicted more people would come back to the game of golf.
“We’re saving people money and we’re actually bringing people back to the game because it’s not going to cost as much to play.”