Mark McCormack - Business Career

Business Career

After his Army discharge, McCormack worked as an attorney at the Cleveland law firm, Arter and Hadden. In the 1950s he helped organize one-day golf exhibitions for professionals around the United States. In 1960, McCormack signed golfer Arnold Palmer as IMG's first client and later signed Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. McCormack's clients eventually included Björn Borg, Chris Evert, Pete Sampras, Michael Schumacher, Derek Jeter, Charles Barkley and model Kate Moss. He also handled special projects for Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II and Tiger Woods.

McCormack wrote several books, including The Terrible Truth About Lawyers and What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School, which spent 21 consecutive weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. His annual publication The World of Professional Golf, first published in 1967, included an (unofficial) world ranking system. In his book What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School, McCormack tells a fictionalized story of a Harvard study in which the three percent of graduates who had clear, written goals earned ten times as much as the 97 percent who didn't have clear, written goals. Numerous motivational speakers, including McCormack himself, Anthony Robbins and Brian Tracy, have used various versions of this story in their presentations.