Faldo/Norman (7 page)

‘You guys are making this sound like this is my last time I’m ever going to get a chance to win in the Masters. But my golfing career is not over. I don’t feel like it has to be cast in stone that I have to win the Masters. We all would like to have things we’ve never had. And, obviously, I haven’t won the Masters, I haven’t won the US Open, I haven’t won the PGA. I’d like to have them all. You just have to chase that elusive rainbow, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you get it one day, you feel a great sense of satisfaction.’

Norman was right, it was not his last chance at seeking his pot of gold at Augusta, or rather, a green jacket. But the magic never happened. He did get to put on a jacket and tie for the now-discontinued International Players Dinner on the Monday night but it is the green variety that is required for the Past Champions Dinner on Tuesday night. Defending champion Crenshaw was the host and served up a Texas barbecue in contrast to Olazábal’s
paella and tapas the previous year. There were 27 former winners present for the 1996 dinner, including 81-year-old Herman Keiser, who won 50 years earlier in 1946.

Following their duels in 1993, Norman and Faldo had not collided again in the eight major championships since. Both players had tied for fourth at the 1994 US PGA but were out of contention and finished eight strokes behind Nick Price. By dint of also having won the Open at Turnberry a few weeks earlier, the Zimbabwean became the new world number one but his major tally of three stalled there.

No other players had truly established themselves as dominant major contenders, although Colin Montgomerie had managed to lose two playoffs in the previous two years. Perhaps the most significant win around this time came from Ernie Els at the 1994 US Open at Oakmont, where he beat Montgomerie and Loren Roberts in extra holes and Curtis Strange declared the 24-year-old South African was the ‘next god of golf’. Els had a good chance to win a second title at the 1995 US PGA, but did not even make the playoff in which Steve Elkington defeated Montgomerie.

Elkington then had the only set of clubs he had used throughout his professional career stolen from his car and his form had dipped, so the winner of the last major was not thought a likely contender at Augusta. The other major champions from an eclectic couple of years were Olazábal, who missed the 1996 Masters while suffering from rheumatoid polyarthritis, Crenshaw, who was just as out of form as the year before, Corey Pavin and John Daly, who had beaten Costantino Rocca in a playoff to win the 1995 Open at St Andrews.

Faldo was no better than 24th in any of the majors in 1995 and while Norman lost out to Pavin at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills, he won the money list on the PGA Tour for only the second time in his career and regained the world number one crown from his friend Price. Bookmakers in Las Vegas were quoting Norman as the narrow favourite for the 1996 Masters but in London Fred Couples led the betting following his victory at the Players Championship.

For many years until 2006, the Players was the anchor event of the Florida swing of tournaments in March and the main warm-up event for the Masters, played two or three weeks earlier. Defying years of back problems since winning the Masters in 1992, Couples charged to victory at Sawgrass with an eagle at the 16th hole thanks to an approach shot that bounced the right way off the bank by the water and a 30-foot putt. He then holed from 25 feet for a birdie on the island green of the 17th hole. The crowd were going nuts and Montgomerie, who had been leading, had little chance once his second at the 16th splashed into the lake.

However, Montgomerie, who had already won the first three of his incredible seven-in-a-row order of merit titles on the European Tour, was now second on the world rankings, a career high. After a winter in his garage-turned-gym, a slimmed down version of the Scot emerged after a long winter’s break to win his first event of the year in Dubai in March, in the process hitting his famous shot with a driver from the fairway over the water to the 18th green. His record at Augusta was poor, but he was so heavily backed with British bookmakers on the eve of the Masters that he started as the co-favourite with Couples.

Adding to the sense that anyone could win was the fact that four of the last five winners on the PGA Tour had been first-timers. Just at the time of the season when all the top players were playing most weeks, Tim Herron, Paul Goydos, Scott McCarron and Paul
Stankowski, who was the sixth alternate for the last tournament prior to the Masters in Atlanta and was a winner on the second-tier Nike Tour the week before that, had all sprung surprise victories and booked their first trips to Augusta in the process.

Nicklaus said: ‘When Snead and Hogan were in their prime, you looked at five or six players to win the tournament. When I was in my prime, there were about ten players, maybe a few more. Today, you look at 30 or 40 players. But when it gets down to it on Sunday, you’re going to have the top ones there. You always do. That is what makes it such a great tournament.’

With so many potential winners to choose from, a survey of golf writers’ picks in the
Augusta Chronicle
produced 11 different nominations. Norman and Faldo received only one pick each. Montgomerie, Couples, Love and Daly had two each, while Phil Mickelson and Tom Lehman led the way with three each. Lehman was not a bad shout after becoming a regular contender in majors, though he would have to wait a few more months for his breakthrough win at the Open at Lytham. Mickelson was perhaps the form player of the early part of the American season, having won twice, at Tucson and Phoenix, but the 25-year-old had yet to win east of the Mississippi.

Love was the pick of a
Golf World
(US) magazine article which ruled out contenders on the basis of, for example, being an amateur (had never won the Masters); the defending champion (only happened twice); anyone older than 46 (the age at which Nicklaus won in 1986); Augusta debutants (only Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 had won on his first appearance in modern times); and anyone who had waited longer than the 14 appearances it took Billy Casper to win in 1970. Among those dispatched were Norman (16th appearance), Strange (20th) and Kite (23rd), and with other categories applied, eventually they got down to a final four that comprised Langer, Faldo, Mickelson and Love. They gave the final nod to
Love, who turned 32 on the Saturday of the 1996 Masters, exactly matching the average age of the 59 previous Masters champions. Langer, in fact, had suffered a shoulder injury while playing volleyball in the garden with his children and had not quite recovered full fitness.

In honour of Nicklaus’s win ten years earlier, when the Bear had been inspired by an infamous comment in the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
by Tom McCollister that he was ‘gone, done, doesn’t have the game any more’, a columnist for the
Augusta Chronicle
handicapped the 1996 Masters field in a similar style. Norman: ‘When’s the last time this guy made a cut anyway? Nice hat, though.’ Faldo: ‘Here’s a little-known Masters fact for you: No player with a college-age girlfriend has ever won the tournament. At least, none that we know of.’

Faldo was in the process of getting divorced from his second wife Gill after his affair with University of Arizona student Brenna Cepelak had become public the previous autumn. He had received the full tabloid treatment, which meant he was even more wary than usual when appearing at his press conference at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday. Dan Yates, the brother of former British Amateur champion Charlie Yates and the Augusta member who was moderating the interview, opened up in typical fashion by saying: ‘Okay, Nick, if you’ll say what’s on your mind and then they’ll have a go at you.’

‘That’s the problem,’ Faldo responded. ‘Fire away.’ As a player in his prime, as opposed to once he went to the commentary box, Faldo was never exactly expansive in a Normanesque fashion with a microphone in front of him. But there were a few lines of note, including the news that the shoulder that bothered him when he missed the cut at the Players Championship was now fine. ‘It was just tight for a few days and then got progressively better,’ he reported. ‘I feel I’ve been playing nicely the last couple
of months and just sort of waiting for something to happen; or waiting for this week, one or the other. I’m quite happy with most of my game.’

When asked about Norman missing his last two cuts in a row, Faldo was ready with a quip. ‘Write him off quick,’ he said. ‘I think that’s the end of him, really. He’s gone.’

On whether his desire was as strong as ever, Faldo said: ‘Oh, yeah. My desire’s always the same with the majors. Gosh, we’ve been thinking about them, you know, planning for this for six months since the PGA. You start thinking and working out your game plan and everything. So you’re certainly conscious of the majors. They’re the most important ones. That’s what I’m aiming for, so I’ve still got the desire for them.’

On any changes to the Augusta National course: ‘Everything’s been really similar here for the last five or six years. It’s the same set-up. The course just gets better and better. The condition is incredible.’ In fact, there was one change. Since 1989 the tributary of Rae’s Creek that runs in front of the 13th green had a high water level, meaning attempts at recovery shots like Curtis Strange’s in the final round in 1985 were not possible. The water level had now been reduced to again expose more of the banks and rocks in the stream.

Finally, Faldo was asked whether the Masters was the severest test in golf? ‘Yeah, I think so,’ he said. ‘It becomes the feel factor. You can’t just blast in and miss a green and get up and down. You can’t do that here. If you’re nervous and under pressure, you’ve still got to hit great shots all the time. You’ve got to keep the ball in the right position. If you don’t, you’ve got to have the touch to get up and down or whatever. That’s where it ends up a hard test.’

The final round of the 1996 Masters was already proving a hard test for Norman. He kept getting out of position and though his short game had saved him at the 2nd hole, it had not at the 1st. But it had been his short game that had won him his last tournament, the Doral-Ryder Open just over a month earlier. He took only 101 putts for the week and got up and down whenever required but his work on and around the greens covered up some sloppy play elsewhere.

Partly this was down to a driver whose face caved in when he went out to complete the last few holes of his third round on Sunday morning. It needed replacing so his wife Laura hopped on a helicopter with a spare and flew from their home in Jupiter Island down to Miami in time for the final round. Norman also took the time between rounds to have his first session with Harmon since the previous August. ‘Things tend to drift away over a period of time when you haven’t seen your coach,’ he said. ‘There are a couple of little faults I’ve got back in my game.’

Overall, Norman was pleased. ‘I didn’t hit the ball as crisply as I’d like but winning when you are not on full song is a very positive confidence-booster.’ There were even signs that the Shark’s go-for-broke attitude was softening. Three ahead playing the last, he made a safe bogey rather than risk anything worse. The year before at the same tournament he had been leading by one over Faldo when he drove into the rough at Doral’s 18th and then hooked a six-iron into the water to hand the title to the Englishman. It was Faldo’s last win before the 1996 Masters.

The 3rd hole at Augusta is a great short par-four and one of the scariest on the course, according to Johnny Miller. It is one of the holes that has changed least over the years. While it plays at 350 yards now, it used to be recorded at 360 yards. More players now try to drive the green, or leave just a short wedge approach, but back then it was probably a long-iron followed by a short-iron
for the second. Faldo hit a two-iron off the tee and a wedge to the middle of the green, 12 feet from the hole, which was cut in the neck on the left of the green. Attacking this pin position leaves little margin for error between coming up short, when the ball will roll off the shelf and all the way down the fairway, and going over the back, which is not clever either.

Just as he did at the 2nd hole, albeit with a much shorter club, Norman went over the green. But not by much. He was able to chip down to three feet and safely made his par. Faldo missed his birdie putt on the high side but tapped in for a score that was two shots better than his double bogey 24 hours earlier. So the hole was halved in pars; Norman still led by five strokes but already one of the two was beginning to look more comfortable than the other – and it wasn’t the leader.