Faldo/Norman (2 page)

A choice between watching Norman or Faldo was no contest. When Norman arrived in Europe, the ‘Brisbane Bomber’ was right up there with Ballesteros in the thrill-a-minute department: his Scandinavian looks from his Finnish mother, Toini, combined with the surfer boy image straight from central casting by the
Australian tourist board (long before
Crocodile Dundee
, this). ‘Norman is a sight worth seeing on a golf course,’ wrote John Hopkins in the
Sunday Times
in 1984, ‘and not only for his guardsman’s walk, his parchment-coloured hair and a voice that echoes around the fairways. He hits the ball as if his life depends on it. From the top of his backswing, when his powerful shoulders are fully turned, he brings his club down at high speed, often grunting with the effort, and swinging so hard that his hands are swept through, up and around his head until his body position resembles a reverse C. When his dander is up, he creates such an impression of power that you wince when he makes contact.’

Now, on Sunday 14 April 1996 both men stood side by side awaiting their opening shots of the final round of the Masters. The date was significant: the last three winners on April 14 had all been non-Americans: Ian Woosnam in 1991, Bernhard Langer in 1985 and Gary Player in 1974. Further confirmation that Norman was on to a good thing arrived with news that the previous five winners of the Masters had played in the final pairing on the last day (as would the next 12). It was the perfect spring day in Georgia, ideal golfing conditions and both men were dressed similarly, in black trousers and white shirts, Faldo with vertical stripes, Norman with dark geometric shapes and, of course, his trademark hat.

It was a black wide-brimmed synthetic straw hat, a golfing version of the Akubra bushman’s hat. In his youth, Norman had had a scruffy old straw hat that he wore down at the beach or while fishing or boating. He continued with the old favourite when he took up golf, even if his mother (the golfer in the family) thought it inappropriate for the golf club. It seems a distant past, compared to the modern ubiquity of golfing caps, when the game’s stars went bareheaded, as Faldo was this day. In fact, Faldo always looked a bit odd when he later adopted a cap, his
distinctive features hidden as they are for virtually all today’s leading players, a strange uniformity prevailing.

Norman, by contrast, looked eye-catching whether showing off his yellow mane or sporting the Akubra. Of course, the latest version featured his ‘Great White Shark’ logo, the nickname bestowed long ago on his debut in the Masters having not just stuck but become a brand in itself. The hat, as so much with Norman, suggested that anything other than winning was not an option. But the more inevitable not winning became that day, the more incongruous the hat became. Curiously, Norman won his two majors hatless, his most distinctive feature unhidden, albeit under the softer rays of the British seaside sun.

Was Norman a talented showman or one of the golfing greats? This was the day that should have put an end to such questions but actually only intensified them. David Davies wrote in the 1999 book
Beyond the Fairways
: ‘So, what is he, this blond-haired, icy-blue-eyed man with broad shoulders, flat belly, slim hips and long legs and who is likely to be wearing a big hat, a garish shirt and tight trousers? Is he a great golfer or a charismatic clothes horse? Is he the most imposing player in modern professional golf or a total poser? The questions follow him around the world.’

Norman’s ability to make money, whether on the golf course or in his increasingly successful business ventures, was not in question. Nor was his liking for speed and expensive toys – the cars, yachts, helicopters, jets – nor his energy and zest for life. Good on him. But golfing greatness required something more, something to add to the two claret jugs and to balance the scale against the times he came so close but ultimately failed, sometimes by his own hand, sometimes due to terrible misfortune. Victory at Augusta, the scene of so many previous Masters disasters, was his due. He had been sized up for a green jacket, the
symbol of a Masters champion, so often but now it seemed certain that finally he was going to be able to wear one.

From the opening tee shot that Sunday a different story started to unfold, centred around not one but two players. It was uncomfortable, sickening, traumatic at times, and through it all a pensive grimace was glued to Norman’s face. It had been there ever since his eyes first started turning left, following the ball, from his very first drive of the day.

As it turned out, the ‘most imposing player in modern professional golf’, as Davies put it, was to be not Norman but Tiger Woods. Just a year later Woods burst onto the scene by winning the 1997 Masters by a record 12 strokes and his tenure at the top of the world rankings has lasted twice as long as that of Norman’s. And it would take another 17 years for an Australian, Adam Scott, finally to win the Masters, in 2013.

While Norman and Faldo have moved on to new careers with success, the impact of their epic duel at the 1996 Masters has had a lasting effect. Their influence lives on in the new generation of players who have followed each of them, such as Scott and Justin Rose. Norman heads a number of companies under the umbrella of Great White Shark Enterprises and in the syntax of Twitter has found the perfect expression of his personal mantra: #AttackLife. Sir Nick Faldo, for he was knighted by the Queen in 2009 for services to golf, has created a worldwide junior tournament scheme as well as becoming one of the game’s leading television commentators. Each April the Englishman is ensconced in a tower above the 18th green at Augusta National to analyse and comment for the American broadcaster CBS.

It was below Faldo on the final green that Scott holed a
25-footer and bellowed: ‘C’mon Aussie’. It got the 32-year-old into a playoff with Angel Cabrera which Scott won at the second extra hole when he holed a 15-footer for birdie in the dark and rain on the 10th green. ‘An unbelievable, magical moment – he is now officially the Wizard of Oz. What a couple of putts they were!’ Faldo exclaimed as a nation on the other side of the world celebrated over breakfast. ‘From Down Under to on top of the world,’ added CBS’s Australian commentator Ian Baker-Finch.

Australians had won the other three golfing majors, and winning the Open Championship remains the dream for any young Aussie golfer, as it was for Norman. But not winning the Masters was getting ridiculous. Too many good players had failed in the quest and Norman’s near misses had almost traumatised a nation.

‘Between the Bangles and the Boomtown Rats, it’s pretty much set in underwater-cured concrete that Mondays have a bit to answer for. They certainly have for Australian golf fans, especially during the mesmerising but frequently demoralising heyday of Greg Norman,’ wrote Patrick Mangan in
So Close – The Bravest, Craziest, Unluckiest Defeats in Aussie Sport
(Norman could have multiple entries in all those categories).

Scott had watched the 1996 Masters as a 15-year-old golf-mad Shark fan and was crying by the end. After his victory he said: ‘Part of this belongs to Greg. He inspired a nation of golfers. He was the best player in the world and was an icon in Australia. He has devoted so much time to myself and other Australian players who have come after him. He has given me so much inspiration and belief.’ Norman had long since gone from being Scott’s hero to his mentor and the champion said he was looking forward to celebrating over a beer with him. Norman, who was watching at his home in Florida, was delighted. ‘There was more pressure on Adam because no Australian has ever won the Masters. It was a monumental feat and I’m so happy for him.’

This is what Scott’s victory meant: within 24 hours the members of the Australian Golf Writers Association had unanimously agreed, halfway through April, that Scott would be their player of the year – nothing could top this. Scott was also honoured with Australia’s top sporting award, The Don, named after cricket legend Don Bradman. When he returned home in November he received the keys to the City of Gold Coast and there was a ‘Wear Green for Adam Scott Day’ at the Australian PGA Championship. ‘The whole of Australia was buzzing with excitement following Adam’s momentous victory at Augusta,’ said Brian Thorburn, CEO of the PGA of Australia. ‘We wanted to provide a welcome home befitting his achievement whilst also giving fans the chance to celebrate.’

When Scott received a congratulatory text from his friend Rose, Scott replied that the Englishman was next. ‘This is our time,’ he wrote. ‘He’s a wise man,’ Rose said after winning the US Open at Merion, hitting a four-iron at the final hole from beside the plaque commemorating Ben Hogan’s one-iron in 1950. Both Scott and Rose could go on to win more majors. Perhaps they will be the new Norman and Faldo, although the old duo themselves might be in competition again once Fox take over televising the US Open in 2015. When the announcement was made that the US Golf Association was dropping NBC and Johnny Miller, Norman admitted he had been approached to become the lead analyst for Fox’s first venture into golf.

Rose was the first Englishman to win the US Open since Tony Jacklin in 1970 – Faldo never managed it – and the first Englishman to win any major since Faldo at the 1996 Masters. ‘It was always a matter of time before one of us broke through,’ Rose said. ‘But I’m glad it was me.’ Rose had had lunch with Faldo two weeks before. ‘He’s a classy guy,’ said Faldo. ‘No matter how many times he got knocked down, he still had self-belief.’

Scott won on his 12th appearance and at 32 was exactly the average age for a Masters winner. Norman was two months past his 41st birthday in April 1996 and was making his 16th appearance at Augusta. No one would have been older or taken as long to win their first Masters had the Shark won that year (although at 41 years and three months, Mark O’Meara would have taken the age record anyway in 1998).

Only three players, Horton Smith, Gene Sarazen and Fuzzy Zoeller, have won on their Masters debut, and the first two of those were in the first two years of the tournament. Charl Schwartzel became only the third player to win on his second appearance in 2012.

It took Woods three goes, Arnold Palmer and Ballesteros four each, Nicklaus and Gary Player five and Faldo six, which turns out to be the average number of appearances before a first Masters win. In all, Norman appeared 23 times in the Masters, with eight top-five finishes. Gene Littler and Tom Kite, who had nine top-fives, hold the record for the most appearances without winning (26). Without the winner’s lifetime exemption, all the other qualifications for receiving an invitation eventually run out. Faldo chooses not to play any longer; Norman does not have that choice.

For Norman, the Masters was his favourite tournament of the year and Augusta National one of his favourite courses. Winning this event became something of an obsession, particularly after having had a chance to get into a playoff with Nicklaus in 1986, but flailing his approach deep into the crowd, and in 1987 when he was in a playoff down at the 11th when Larry Mize did the unthinkable and holed an outrageous chip from well off the green. ‘From the last day of the 1986 tournament, from the very moment I missed the putt for the par, for the next year, 24 hours a day, I thought about the Masters,’ he said. ‘Every day it was on my mind. More than anything else in my life, I wanted to
win that one.’ Trying to get the Mize chip out of his head was even worse.

But the 1996 Masters was all about Norman. Even the introduction to the final round on the BBC coverage hardly mentioned Faldo. Over pictures of Norman’s highlights from the third round, Steve Rider said: ‘The icy nerve of Greg Norman, six shots clear after 54 holes of the US Masters, form that rarely wavered, a putter that rarely failed. He’s led throughout. He’s always looked in control. Even the treacherous 16th held no fears and yesterday produced a vital birdie. They say yesterday was the day he won the US Masters. Today is surely not the day he’s going to lose it. It’s happened before, though. In 1986, needing a four to tie at the last he took five and Nicklaus won the title.’

Cue the video of Norman’s four-iron diving right of the green and Peter Alliss’s commentary: ‘That really was a dreadful shot. Put to the test and found wanting, I’m afraid.’

Rider again: ‘In 1987 victory looked assured. He was in control of a playoff only for Larry Mize to produce his miracle and Norman was second at the Masters once again.’ Cue video with Alliss’s succinct: ‘And they say the meek shall inherit the earth…’

Rider, over a caption with the leaderboard: ‘Greg Norman, the world number one, seems poised to put all that agonising history behind him. In yesterday’s third round he opened up a six-shot lead over his nearest rival Nick Faldo. Greg Norman arrived at Augusta National a few hours ago ahead of what most people are expecting to be a triumphant march to his first major title in the United States. Once again playing alongside Nick Faldo, admitting he was in need of a miracle but in the last round of the Masters, the miraculous can happen.’

That morning’s newspapers had trodden a similar line between proclaiming Norman as the winner and not wishing more of the unthinkable on him. ‘Shark smells blood’ was the
headline in the
Augusta Chronicle
, with the subheading: ‘Pursuers can only hope for complete collapse by Norman, who holds six-shot lead going into the final round’.