A man has got to know his limits.

It's a lesson Greg Norman picked up from a fictional character, but it's become his credo in real life.

As a teenager, Norman went body surfing off Brisbane in his native Australia. It was just after a storm, so the water was turbulent — in Norman's mind, a good thing. Suddenly, he found himself stuck in a riptide that sucked him down and tumbled him like a wet rag in a washing machine.

He managed to get to the surface and make it back to shore. Over the next few days he thought about his near-death experience, and a movie he'd seen the week before popped into his head, he recalls in his newly published autobiography, "The Way of the Shark," written with Donald Phillips.

"I swear that the image popped into my head of Clint Eastwood (in 'Magnum Force,' as inspector 'Dirty Harry' Callahan) saying, 'A man has got to know his limitations,' " Norman wrote.

That's when he decided to dedicate his life to what he truly loved — golf.

His devotion paid off. Norman, known as "The Shark" for his aggressive play, became a two-time British Open winner, earned 86 career tournament victories and held the No. 1 world ranking for 331 weeks. After Jack Nicklaus, experts regard Norman as the game's greatest long hitter. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001.

He was equally aggressive in business, and created a mini-empire that has extended the Shark brand from golf clothing and equipment to real estate, wine, and even grass specially suited for golf courses.

In a recent Investor's Business Daily interview, Norman, 51, said that knowing limits was a lesson that stuck with him.

For example, when he turned pro, he didn't immediately leave his native Australia for the U.S., where the big bucks were. He chose instead to first play in Asia and then Europe, so he could gain seasoning in a less-competitive atmosphere.

"I had to build my personal, internal confidence," Norman said. "Everybody has a certain level that they have to get to before reaching for the next level. I look at life as a ladder; as soon as I got to one level I'd start to push to the next."

Norman knows there are no shortcuts in life. It's a lesson he learned young. He and a young friend had to bike three miles to get to a stable where they kept horses. Norman cut a hole in a fence that allowed speedier access to his horse. He got caught and punished.

Today, he makes sure to follow each step carefully in any venture.

"If you try to take a shortcut you always miss out on something," Norman said. "Especially if you're successful, you start to think you can take things for granted, that you can always get away with it. And sometimes you do get away with it, but it always catches up to you. This is especially true in business. If I don't understand the minutiae of a deal I'm getting into, I don't understand the big picture."

His parents encouraged his golf career, but made it clear that it would take hard work. He threw himself into the task, raising his own bar higher than anyone else's.

"If someone hit a couple of hundred balls every day, I have to hit more than that," he said. "To get to be No. 1, you have to go harder at everything."

One of Norman's first jobs in the business was as an assistant pro. He worked for Charlie Earp, who's considered one of the best golf coaches in the world. He absorbed Earp's wisdom, including the mantra of "Din and dip — do it now and do it properly."

"As an assistant pro, I had a lot of tasks to do, selling merchandise in the pro shop, giving lessons, getting the golf course ready," Norman recalled. "Charlie told us that the quicker you get it done right, the quicker you can get out on the driving range and practice."

And Norman listened — to anyone he thought could give him good advice. "I've always been a big listener," he said. "I always tell my kids you're not learning anything when you talk; you're nor absorbing other people's knowledge."

Besides listening, he watched other golfers to see what set winners apart from losers.

"You have to understand your enemy. You have to understand what makes them tick," Norman said. "It's the same thing in business. You have to understand what the other side is doing that you're not."

Norman made it a point to try to stay positive on the golf course — as well as in his various business enterprises. A good attitude "not only radiates within yourself, but throughout your entire office," he said. "You go to sleep thinking positively, you'll wake up positively. You go to sleep thinking doom and gloom, you'll wake up thinking doom and gloom."

Even as a young golfer, Norman always thought long term. He'd sit on an airplane and "contemplate where I want to go and what I want to do," he wrote in "The Way of the Shark." He also asked himself what he had to do to get there.

Ambitious, Norman created his Shark golf wear as soon as he figured he had widespread name recognition. With sales strong, he built the brand up and started to license other clothing lines. But he'd moved too soon, as it turned out.

"We went into licensing too quickly," he said. "What I should have done first was establish brand credibility."

So Norman headed back to the drawing board, analyzed his mistakes and tried again. "We refined our product and now have 15 consecutive quarters of double-digit growth," he said. " Now we're thinking about licensing again."

In everything he's attempted, Norman always stayed focused on the goal. For example, one of his businesses is designing golf courses. He didn't want to build the most difficult course — that would've been easy. Instead, he set out to build a course that was fair to everyone from a novice to a pro.

He's kept his eyes open for new business opportunities, and usually discovered them close by. When he started designing golf courses, he found that a particular brand of grass worked best. So he started a company that produced that seed.

When he sees a need, he comes up with a way to fill it. "I noticed real estate developers were asking me to design golf courses for their communities because they added value to the development," he said. "If these guys are using me, why can't we do it (build developments) ourselves?"

Although Norman still plays three or four tournaments annually, he's become perhaps better known for his business acumen. Take the time he was in his boat going to a favorite fishing spot off Florida when a Coast Guard cutter intercepted him.

After a few minutes, the commander recognized either Norman or his name. "Hey, are you Greg Norman, the wine guy?" she asked.

BY CURT SCHLEIER