(FORTUNE Magazine) – Most business people don't get serious about golf until retirement. Six-time Masters winner Jack Nicklaus, 51, has done it the other way around. Now that he has reduced his touring schedule, he's parking his putter at Golden Bear International, his private holding company. For those tournaments he does play, says Richard Bellinger, Nicklaus's No. 2, ''you'd be shocked to see how little he practices.'' Nicklaus isn't wasting his time: Golden Bear's annual profits are three times his $5.2 million career earnings from pro golf. His businesses (total sales: $50 million) include product licensing, golf videos, and most recently sports management. Nicklaus has already signed up ex-Philadelphia Phillie third-baseman Mike Schmidt and hopes to advise others as well on contracts, endorsements, and tax matters. But his biggest driver of revenues and profits remains golf course design. Nicklaus laid out 78 existing courses and has 94 more in the works, which puts him among the world's most prolific golf course architects. He also is among the most costly. Rates start at $1.2 million -- more than double what fellow pros like Johnny Miller charge -- and run to $1.7 million in Japan, where Nicklaus is designing 19 courses. Margins on the design operation are a hefty 50%. New deals dropped 15% in the U.S. last year, but foreign business pushed the total number of contracts up 35%. The next step: building public courses, which charge daily fees and unlike his past courses do not require club membership to play. Nicklaus will design and own the facilities, and Marriott will operate them.