Interview with Greg Norman:The Australian's empire continues to expand, and now he has a new partner. Richard Gillisreports

In the shade of a large, overhanging tree, Greg Norman reaches out to put his arm around new fiancee Chris Evert, turning to place a quiet kiss on the side of her head. A small token of affection among many, coming just days after the Australian had proposed marriage to the former "darling of Wimbledon". The question was popped over dinner aboard GN1, his private jet, as it flew over the Atlantic from Florida en route to this remote part of South Africa, just north of Cape Town.

That this romantic gesture took place as Norman walked between tee and green during the first round of the South African Open just shows how loved up they are.

On this beautiful morning, Evert (53), is playing the role of golf widow. Appropriately dressed in black - lycra - she follows her man around the Pearl Valley Golf Course, a stunning new development, designed by Jack Nicklaus, set in prime Western Cape wine country. Beside her a young man is dressed in classic golf casual garb, the line of his chinos spoilt only by the hand gun attached to his belt.

At 52, Norman looks much the same as he did in his heyday, his lean, athletic physique noticeably at odds with the muscle-bound young pretenders prowling the practice range. Evert's presence behind the ropes seems to inspire him: Norman's name is a fixture on the leaderboard this week. He would finish in joint seventh.

The wind off the Frakenheim mountain range blows many of today's young stars off the course. Rory McIlroy takes 83 on the first day, and despite a strong second round misses the cut. Norman's final score of level par is several shots ahead of the other major champions in the field, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Angel Cabrera.

It is a considerable achievement given this is his first pro event since the Dubai Masters in February, a break of nine months. Playing golf has almost become a hobby for Norman, long ago making way for his business career. And, as with the decision-making of any good chief executive, there are financial reasons for his presence this week: Norman would soon officially announce he will be building a second course here at Pearl Valley.

He is, in part, schmoozing a major client: Leisurecorp, the sports arm of Istithmar, the Dubai investment company which owns Pearl Valley. It is the same group helping to fund the Race to Dubai, the European Tour's new, £20 million end-of-season competition which was announced to great fanfare in October.

A FEW HOURS later and the focus shifts to Chris Evert, with Norman in support. On the drive that runs up to the clubhouse, they emerge from a Mercedes SUV hand-in-hand and dressed in matching white outfits, so bright they're hard to look at.

They are here to launch a Chris Evert Tennis Centre: four courts built to replicate the four surfaces of the major championships. It is the second such venture in as many months: the first was in Dubai.

Into the boardroom of the golf club and the couple sit at a large oak table, giggling like teenagers, hands linked under the desk.

Evert, who retired from the game in 1989, having won 18 Grand Slam titles, is the warmer of the two, quick to laugh, eyes darting to her partner to encourage his participation. He is more reserved, conscious that this afternoon is her gig.

There is no pretence that the tennis centre is anything but a rich man's playground. However, back in Florida, Evert works with the USTA on developing American talent.

"Point blank, players are hungrier in other countries, notably the eastern European countries," says Evert. "They see Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova making a lot of money and living a glamorous lifestyle, so they want to get out of Russia and come to America, the land of freedom and the land of opportunity."

Looking back at her career, she says the loss to Virginia Wade in the semi-final of Wimbledon in 1977 was the low point. She should have won, she says, but she allowed the British crowd, pumped up by that year's Jubilee celebrations, get to her.

As she moves her hand, the diamond ring on her finger catches the light and prompts a question about their personal situation. Unaware that Norman had spilled the beans of their engagement in a separate interview a half hour before, Evert is caught off guard.

"Partnership? What is this? A business?" she says in mock indignation.

"He's talking about the marriage," says Norman, grinning.

They laugh as she shows off the ring, and says they will marry sometime this year.

Locals here are quick to notice the irony: more than 30 years ago, in the same country, the bling on Evert's finger attracted similar media interest. That time, in 1973, a similarly impressive ring was given to her by Jimmy Connors, a love match that never made it to the altar.

Instead, Evert married English tennis player John Lloyd in 1979. Following the divorce from Lloyd in 1987, she married former Olympic skier Andy Mill, with whom she has three sons.

"Now I've got four boys," she says, looking over at Norman.

You sense the playful air owes much to the distance between here and Florida, where the fall-out of their respective break-ups continues, not least in the media.

Evert separated from Mill in October 2006. Last January her relationship with Norman was officially "outed", with the pair happy to be photographed having lunch at a high-profile Sydney restaurant.

Norman's divorce has been ugly, and public. His wife of 25 years, Laura, was awarded a substantial settlement. The couple's €20 million home in Florida, where they socialised frequently with Evert and Mill, has been put on the market.

A statement issued by Norman's lawyers seemed to sum up his attitude. "The wife did not teach the husband to swing a golf club," the petition read. "The wife did not teach the husband to win."

It went on to say that Greg Norman's contribution to the marriage "far exceeded the contributions of the wife".

Would the power relationship between two such high-profile sports people as Norman and Evert be more equal?

The question elicits a surprising response. Unprompted, Norman references his most infamous failure: the loss of the 1996 Masters, when he went in to the final day six shots clear, only to collapse before the grinding brilliance of Nick Faldo's final-round 67.

"Nobody else can understand what it's like to be number one," says Norman. "Nobody can understand what it's like to be beaten by Navratilova, or me by Faldo, unless you've been there. Our thoughts and feelings on life are so in synch, it's a very special relationship."

"DON'T LET THE bastards get you down," said Faldo to Norman as they walked off Augusta's 18th green that afternoon. The Englishman was referring to the media waiting in the press tent, but the sentiment had a broader application.

Around that time, Norman made the decision to take control of his destiny, a move that has brought him enormous wealth but also in to conflict with some of the game's powerbrokers.

To facilitate his new independence he broke with IMG, the management group founded by Mark McCormack. He came to resent the company's fee structure that saw them take 10 per cent of his winnings and 25 per cent of off-course earnings. His biggest gripe was what he calls their short-term approach.

"I saw value in my own brand, and most management companies only see you as an endorsement-related product. They don't build equity in you, they don't build value over a longer period of time. I saw myself in a different place in 10 or 15 years down the line. I never wanted to be a pass-through entity," he says.

"They rent players out three to five years at a time until their use-by-date expires and the next set of youngsters come along. It's the same with the PGA Tour, you're there doing your thing for 15, 20 years, then someone else comes along. They don't want to put a whole lot of stock in one individual."

Tiger Woods, another IMG client, is the exception, having arguably greater power than any individual sportsman ever.

"If Tiger were to come and play the Race to Dubai, it would show that he was doing it for the game of golf and not the individual," says Norman. "I've heard that Tiger's management company has said, 'you think Tiger Woods is going to play in the Race to Dubai, dream on'.

"I get really disappointed when I hear comments like that, because nobody is bigger than the game of golf. No management company, no TV network, no sponsor. You've got to do it for the right reasons.

"I hope he does, he only has to play 11 European Tour events. He's already doing four majors and the WGCs, so that's only three more - you know the numbers. He's probably going to get appearance money for those three others, so it's a stupid statement to make, to tell you the truth."

The Race to Dubai has been heralded in some quarters as marking a new era in golf, a watershed that delineates the arrival of a World Tour. For Norman it is a case of back to the future: in 1994 he and Rupert Murdoch announced they were going to start a world tour, consisting of 30 events involving the top players in the world rankings. It came to nothing as Norman was outmanoeuvred by Tim Finchem, now the PGA Tour Commissioner.

In Norman's eyes, Finchem derailed the Australian's plan by turning influential American players against him. Once, Arnold Palmer, a personal hero, stood up at a meeting of Tour players and gave a long speech criticising Norman and his plan. The message was the World Tour was more about Greg Norman than the good of the game. All this while Norman was sitting at the back of the room.

The self-interest of the Tour and IMG, he says, stifled a World Tour back then, but big business is driving it now.

"They (The European Tour and Leisurecorp) have seen what's happened in the US where it's become a one-man show," he says. "They've seen what's happened with the WGCs, which started off around the world but all of a sudden have been sucked back in to the US.

"I'm not saying I was 100 per cent right, but I never got the chance to work out the situation," says Norman. "With the World Tour it was the PGA going behind my back, using their propaganda machine to squash Greg Norman, eliminate the idea and then go and take the same idea and develop it themselves (in the form of WGC events). I'm a member of the Tour and their responsibility should be to their constituents, not just their selfish administration.

"That's how they want to be, (then) I don't need to be in that world. That's why I don't play the US Senior Tour, to tell you the truth. Why should I go out there and support an organisation that has never supported me? I've been out there in the '80s and '90s because I loved to play. I've done enough for the PGA Tour, why should I go out there and support the Senior PGA Tour, try to lift them up like I did in the '80s and '90s?"

NORMAN'S WEALTH HAS been estimated at well over €200 million. His approach to business was coloured by the experience of his hero Jack Nicklaus, the Golden Bear to Norman's Great White Shark. Nicklaus lost money in the 1980s through a series of bad property deals. As a result, the younger man learnt to use the power of his name to build his business, but, just as importantly, to use other people's money to do it.

His commercial interests have grown "in concentric circles", each using the Great White Shark brand to enter new markets. There are in the region of 60 courses bearing the Norman name across the world. His GWSE course design business charges $1.25 million (€850,000) for a new layout, and the company has around 40 in production, including four in Dubai. In addition, there is Greg Norman wine, a Reebok clothing line, GPS navigation systems and an interior design business. GN1 is the name of his brand of grass, which was used as the surface of choice at the Sydney Olympics and two Super Bowls.

The growing portfolio of Chris Evert Tennis Centres will doubtless be run on similar lines: Dubai's oil money and Evert's name should be a potent mix.

That evening, at one of the luxury homes that line the Pearl Valley course, there is a barbeque thrown by MacGregor Golf, yet another Norman client. He and Evert arrive quietly after another wardrobe change. They press the flesh with the club-makers and the property developers while steaks are turned over the coals. Then, as quickly as they'd arrived, they are gone, the end of a busy day.

But for Norman and Evert, life as sports' new power couple has only begun.