Faldo/Norman (5 page)

Dan Jenkins wrote in his report of the 1986 Open that until his victory at Turnberry Norman’s ‘suitcase had flown open on Sundays. He can let it soar in a peculiar direction now and then. Greg’s feet seem to move on most swings with any club in his hands. He addresses his putts on the toe of the clubhead. He sprays his irons both right and left when he goes bad. He often makes you wonder about his judgment. Despite those things, his power can be awesome and his touch at times is enviable. At Turnberry he managed to keep all of it together for a spell, and
there were moments when it looked like everybody else in the game could forget golf and go play polo with Prince Charles.’

By winning the Open, Norman did fulfil one of Peter Dobereiner’s prophecies. Writing in a 1984 profile, he stated: ‘A few more guesses are in order at this stage of his career as, at the age of 29, he is poised at the crossroads. Will he take the
Pilgrim’s Progress
path to greatness and spiritual fulfilment? Or will he be diverted into the lush byways of winning millions of dollars without causing a flutter among the record books? Well, I will wager my Scottish castle, my Black Forest shooting estate, 20 of my most attentive handmaidens that he will win at least one major championship. Beyond that I would prefer to hedge my bets. It all depends on that core of ambition and determination residing so deeply within him that even he cannot unravel its secrets.’

Typical of the heady mixture of brilliance, carelessness and misfortune was the final day of the 1989 Open at Royal Troon. Norman birdied the first six holes and posted a 64 to end up in a playoff with compatriot Wayne Grady and America’s Mark Calcavecchia. Norman then birdied the first two holes of the Open’s inaugural four-hole playoff. But a bogey at the par-three 17th left him tied with Calcavecchia and then at the 18th Norman spanked a driver into a bunker 310 yards away, something he never considered possible. He found another bunker with his next, went out of bounds over the green with his third and picked up. Calcavecchia’s second birdie at the 18th of the afternoon gave him his sole major title.

‘Destiny has a funny way of saying, “Hey, this is the way it’s got to be,” ’ Norman said. ‘But we all accept fate. It’s what keeps us coming back, hoping. You’ve got to think positively. I have to believe my time will come soon.’

The following March at Doral, the Shark destroyed the Blue Monster course with a closing 62 and managed to win a four-man
playoff that included Calcavecchia by chipping in for an eagle at the first extra hole. But, still, the outrageous hits kept on coming his way. A few weeks later at Bay Hill, Robert Gamez holed a seven-iron from 176 yards on the 18th fairway for an eagle two to beat Norman by a stroke. A month after that, David Frost holed a 50-foot bunker shot at the last to again condemn Norman to a one-stroke defeat. ‘If other guys hole their shots and beat me, I have no control over that,’ Norman said rather wearily. ‘At least it means I have been in contention.’

It is a contradiction in golf that a player who goes along quietly and ends up in the top ten at the end of the tournament has had a ‘good week’ while a player who is in contention but loses gets a whole heap of trouble, despite the fact that they have beaten all but one other player – or two or three if they have just missed out on a playoff. Norman always prided himself on putting himself ‘there’ – in contention, where it matters, the hottest part of the crucible. He won more than 90 times in his career, and you can’t do that without putting yourself at the sharp end of things regularly and being able to handle yourself when you get there, but he got burned so often it was bound to have an effect.

‘Why me?’ would not be an unreasonable question, especially after the Mize chip-in of 1987. He put a brave face on it but said it felt like ‘somebody had ripped that green jacket right off my back’. Considering his near miss the year before, his victory at Turnberry and then Tway’s bunker shot at Inverness, in a parallel universe Norman might have won three majors in a row and even four out of five. Not even the Australian realised how long the 1987 Masters defeat lingered in his subconscious. ‘I would not be telling the truth if I did not acknowledge that it took me
much longer to get over that loss than I would care to admit,’ he wrote in
The Way of the Shark
. ‘For the longest time, I would tell everybody that I could take it all and keep going. But I was only kidding myself. The truth is that I tried to bury it deep within myself. But the longer I held it in, the deeper it buried itself inside me. And the deeper something like that gets inside you, the more it harms you.’

From the middle of 1990 – not long after the Gamez and Frost daggers and his third-round capitulation to Faldo at the Open at St Andrews – through most of 1991, Norman’s form deteriorated and his enthusiasm for the game waned. He was burned out. Already interested in many areas of business, he contemplated doing what many others would like to do – ditch the day job to take up his hobby full-time, except the reverse of getting out of the corporate world to play golf. But that seemed like quitting, and he was not a quitter.

A devotee of Zen teachings and motivational gurus such as Tony Robbins, Norman would eyeball himself in the mirror or pull his convertible over to the side of the road near his Florida home and stare at the sky in contemplation. Vowing to become a more resilient person who could learn to expect the unexpected and to put bad breaks behind him and move on, Norman found his old passion for the game returning. He realised he still loved the game and the competition on Sundays, giving yourself a chance to win. Losing was not as good as winning, but it was surely better than finishing early on a Sunday afternoon without having the thrill of knowing the tournament was on the line. He wanted to be the best again and was prepared to start putting in the work again.

He also recalled some advice given to him by Nicklaus: ‘Greg, you are one of the best – the number one, in fact. When you walk out on that 1st tee, people are going to try and elevate their games
to your level just to beat you. And sometimes they will, whether it’s with a phenomenal round or a miracle shot. I’ve been through it and I finally realised you have to take it as a compliment.’ It was in a television interview with former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke in early 1992 that Norman finally admitted to the world how tormented he had been by the Mize chip-in and it was a moment of catharsis.

For his game he sought the help of Butch Harmon, the coach of his friend Steve Elkington. Harmon was convinced he could get Greg Norman to start being Greg Norman again. He began by getting Norman to let fly at a bunch of two-irons, to regain the feel of the ball soaring into the air, higher than most could hit such a club, and drifting it left or right as desired. There were technicalities to tinker with, merely applying the basics, but Harmon’s main priority was rebuilding his pupil’s confidence.

Harmon had Norman slightly abbreviate his swing into a more controlled action, a move that he would replicate with Tiger Woods at the end of the 1990s, which resulted in Woods playing some of the finest golf ever seen as he claimed all four majors at once in 2000–01. He tried something similar later on with Phil Mickelson without ever quite taming the left-hander’s erratic genius. Norman had already been a fine driver of a golf ball and now he was supreme with the longest club in the bag, easily the straightest long hitter of his generation. His iron-play could be sparkling and he worked tirelessly on his putting. Everything was coming together.

Norman won the Canadian Open late in 1992 and at Doral in March 1993 he tied his own course record with a 62 and went on to win by four strokes from Paul Azinger and Mark McCumber at the top of an impressive leaderboard. But the quality of the leaderboard was even better that summer for the Open Championship
at Royal St George’s. The course at Sandwich is notorious for its lumpy, bumpy fairways that can drive a player to distraction with awkward bounces here, there and everywhere. But a couple of huge downpours during the week had taken the worst of the fire out of the links and shot-making of the highest order was rewarded handsomely.

With a round to play, Faldo was sharing the lead with Corey Pavin. Norman was a stroke behind alongside Bernhard Langer. Two shots further back were Nick Price and Australia’s Peter Senior. One behind them were Fred Couples, Ernie Els and Wayne Grady and next on the leaderboard were John Daly and Fuzzy Zoeller. Eight of the leading 11 players were major champions and two of the others would later earn that status.

The final round was unmissable drama. Payne Stewart came in early with a 63 to match Faldo’s course record from two days earlier. Norman began in similar vein with a nine-footer for birdie at the 1st and a 25-footer for a two at the short 3rd. He made another two at the 6th and hit a nine-iron to six inches at the 9th. Clearly, something special was unfolding. He birdied the 12th with a wedge to four feet and then got a four at the par-five 14th. He had just watched his playing partner, Langer, knock it out of bounds on to Prince’s Golf Club on the right but did not hesitate to reach for his driver. A drive, a three-wood and a sand wedge later he was only six inches from the hole. At the 16th, he hit a five-iron to four feet for his third two of the day and even the aberration of missing his par putt from 14 inches at the 17th did not matter.

Out in 31, home in 33, his 64 remains the lowest score by an Open champion in the final round. His aggregate of 267 still stands as an Open record and he became the first champion to score all four rounds in the 60s. It was his finest performance on a golf course. He won by two from Faldo, who had tried everything
he could, including almost holing in one at the 11th, for his 67, by three from Langer, by five from Pavin and Senior, by seven from Price, Els and Paul Lawrie, by eight from Couples, Grady and Scott Simpson and by nine from Stewart. Only one of that top dozen never won a major. ‘Today, I saw the greatest championship in all my 70 years in golf,’ said 91-year-old Gene Sarazen, who had won the Open next door at Prince’s in 1932.

‘Greg had a great day,’ Faldo said. ‘He was always just out of my range. So many guys had opportunities to win, they were all trying to raise their game and do something special. Greg has had a rough ride over the past few years so I’m sure he is happy to have his golf do the talking.’ Langer said: ‘He was invincible. It was fun to watch. People were saying he wouldn’t win another major. I always thought he was too talented not to.’

‘This win means more to me knowing I have beaten great players,’ Norman said. ‘Bernhard is the Masters champion and Nick is the most tenacious golfer on this planet. I probably played the best I have ever played in my life. Today I never mis-hit a shot. I have never hit the ball as solidly. I hit every drive perfect, I hit every iron where I wanted it to be to get on the green. I was playing a game of chess. This is the proudest moment of my life.’

As a double Open champion, Norman was back on his way to overtaking Faldo as the world number one. There was more superlative golf to come, such as at the Players Championship in 1994 when he took the Sawgrass course apart to win by four strokes on 24 under par. Off the course things were going well, too. He had split from IMG and set up his own businesses under the flag of Great White Shark Enterprises. Early in 1996, his stake in the Cobra equipment company realised $40 million when it
was bought out by Fortune Brands, ultimate owners of Titleist and Footjoy.

Needless to say, there were still hiccups. Just a few weeks after the 1993 Open at Sandwich, there was another titanic battle for the US PGA, at Inverness (returning to the venue of Tway’s miracle shot at the 18th in 1986). This time Faldo finished one shot behind Norman, who had become the first player to score eight successive major rounds in the 60s, and Paul Azinger. By strange coincidence, Azinger’s caddie was Mark Jimenez, who had caddied for Tway seven years earlier. In the playoff, Norman’s birdie putt at the first extra hole, which was the 18th, dipped into the cup and horseshoed out again. They went on to the second extra hole, the 10th, where Norman three-putted from 18 feet, lipping out from five feet for his par. It was another 54-hole major lead that had gone astray and in the process he matched Craig Wood for the unwanted distinction of having lost playoffs for all four major championships.