by Andy Farrell
One of the consolations that Norman held on to after his 1996 debacle was that he still had ‘a lot more tournaments to play here’. He would get another chance to win the Masters. He did, indeed, play in each of the next six years, and then again in 2009, but the clock eventually runs out for anyone who does not earn a lifetime exemption by becoming a champion.
After missing the cut the intervening two years, in 1999 he was back in the thick of it despite having undergone shoulder surgery the year before. José María Olazábal led after the second and third rounds but Norman was the sentimental favourite. On the Saturday, he overshot the green at the 12th into the flora on the bank behind and, after a frantic search, had to declare a lost ball. He walked back to the tee, put his tee peg right next to the divot from the previous shot, took aim exactly as before and this time fired the ball onto the green. When he holed the putt for a bogey the place went wild. It was the sort of roar Amen Corner reserves for Sundays. ‘Is it from 1996 or just because I’m getting old?’ Norman said later when asked about the outpouring of support from the gallery.
The Shark added: ‘What happened here in 1996 changed my life. There is a huge amount of support out there from people on a global basis. My locker is full of letters this week. So you still get people writing to you from 1996. You can roll it into what happened last year with the surgery, roll it into the fact that you get to see and appreciate other things in life more than just the game of golf.’
On the Sunday in 1999, Norman was once more playing in the final pairing, starting out one behind. The vital moment came at the 13th, when Norman holed from 25 feet for an eagle but Olazábal managed a birdie from 20 feet to stay level. Norman then bogeyed the next two holes and the Spaniard’s nearest challenger was now Davis Love, who chipped in at the 16th to get within one. Olazábal had watched it happen from the tee and responded with a six-iron to three feet. Norman hit it to six feet but missed the putt, whereas Olazábal holed his. Short it may have been, but the degree of difficulty was extreme. ‘You can’t imagine what a three-footer that was,’ Olazábal said. ‘Downhill and lightning quick with a left-to-right break. I don’t know how the hell I made that putt.’
Olazábal made another brave putt at the 17th to save par and won by two from Love and by three from Norman. It was an emotional victory for the Spaniard as three years earlier he could barely walk and thought he might not play golf again before being treated for rheumatoid polyarthritis. Norman was genuinely pleased for a friend and, having entered the week more in hope than expectation, with his world number one crown long gone, he was in full philosophical mode afterwards. ‘This is easier to take,’ he said. ‘I was more disappointed in 1996 – that one was a totally different animal. It was a successful week and a sad week rolled into one. I feel good I’m back in a position where I know I can contend again. I’m sad I lost but don’t make a mountain out of a molehill on this one.’
Norman had become the eighth player to record at least six top-three finishes at Augusta but the first to do so without having won it. Others were also finding the green jacket elusive, albeit none quite in as harrowing circumstances as the Australian. Love was second in 1995 and 1999 and had six top-ten finishes. David Duval was second in 1998, sixth in 1999, third in 2000 and second again in 2001. Ernie Els had five years in a row when he finished sixth or better, a run book-ended by runner-up finishes in 2000 and 2004.
In the recorder’s hut in 1999, as they signed their scorecards, Olazábal turned to Norman and said: ‘Just keep trying because you deserve this jacket and hopefully you will get it.’ He never did, just as Olazábal never won the Open. In Golf International in 2013, Robert Green observed that both men would be happier had they swapped an Open and a Masters title so they ended up with one of each, rather than two of the same colour.
Norman was sixth in the Open Championship that followed at Carnoustie in 1999, and that seemed as if it might be his last appearance on a leaderboard at a major as injuries took their toll and business and course design became his priorities. After 2005 at St Andrews, he did not even play in the Open but three years later he entered at Royal Birkdale. More than anything it was a warm-up for the following week’s Senior Open Championship at Royal Troon and the US Senior Open the week after that. For a month before Birkdale Norman had other things on his mind anyway, getting married to former tennis star Chris Evert and honeymooning in the Bahamas and then at Skibo Castle in the Scottish Highlands, where the clubs came out again and he started to hit the ball well.
The weather in Lancashire was brutal, wet and windy. Links golf in such conditions is a great leveller and Norman’s experience was a vital commodity. Two rounds of 70 put the 53-year-old part-time golfer a shot off the lead. ‘My life is great,’ Norman said. ‘I feel great. I have a wonderful wife, my whole being is just beautiful. I enjoy playing golf, I enjoy spending time at home with Chrissie and my kids. I enjoy my business and what I’m doing. It’s the first time I’ve got the most beautiful balance in my life.’
He added: ‘My mind still salivates about playing golf.’ But physically, after various surgeries over the years, his body was not up to the long hours of practice he used to put in. He was telling anyone who would listen that he played more tennis than golf and so his expectations were ‘still realistically low’.
A two-over-par 72 in high winds in the third round was good enough to give Norman the lead by two strokes from Padraig Harrington and K.J. Choi. He had birdied two of the last five holes to become the oldest ever leader of the Open. Faldo was so excited he exited the commentary box at the end of the round and went over to give Norman another hug (12 years after the one on the 18th at Augusta). ‘What you are doing is awesome,’ he told his old rival. ‘I’m rooting for you.’
But the fairytale had to come to an end at some point and three bogeys in the first three holes on Sunday hastened that point. Everyone else was struggling as well, however. Harrington had three bogeys in a row to end the front nine and with six holes to play Norman was only a shot behind the Irishman, but then at the 13th there was a two-shot swing. Harrington birdied there and at the 15th and then eagled the 17th after hitting a glorious three-wood onto the green. Walking down the 18th fairway, Harrington told Norman: ‘I’m sorry it isn’t your story being told this evening.’
Harrington said: ‘I thanked Greg for his company. He’s a super guy and the perfect gentleman to be playing with in the last group of an Open. He says “good shot” when it needs to be said, does his own thing as well. Of course, I wanted to win but it would have been a fantastic story if Greg had won. He has been a great champion and another win at this time in his career would have been the icing on the cake. It is never easy leading a tournament in very difficult conditions so you have to feel for him. But, gee, you’d be happy to drive the ball like him at any stage of your career, let alone at 53 years of age.’
For the eighth time Norman had taken the lead into the final day of a major and he had still only won on one of those occasions. This time he closed with a 77. ‘I’m disappointed,’ he said. ‘Padraig played great and finished like a true Open champion. I hung in there and can hold my head up high and I’m sure I surprised a lot of people. I thought I got off to a pretty good start but the conditions were tough. If you haven’t played a lot of golf it’s hard to regroup. And I don’t plan on playing too much golf.’
Norman moved on to become the captain of the International team at the Presidents Cup. He served in the post at Harding Park in San Francisco in 2009 and at Royal Melbourne in 2011, the Americans winning each time. One of the decisions Norman made for the 2009 match was to pick Adam Scott as a wild card. It did not go down well since Scott, the world number three a year earlier, had completely lost form, missing six cuts in a row during the season. ‘It was easy for me to take the criticism,’ Norman said, ‘because I wanted to help my friend and to help a player who should be a lot higher in the game than he was get back up there. He needed a pat on the back from someone to reali
se he was not in as deep a hole as he thought.’
Scott was 15 when he watched Norman lose the 1996 Masters and was devastated for his hero. They first met around that time when Norman gave the youngster a lift on his plane. Over the years Scott often stayed at Norman’s home in Florida and the Shark turned into a mentor. ‘I love the idea of handing down what I’ve learned to someone like Adam,’ Norman told Golf Digest. ‘He’s humble, he’s kind, he’s intelligent – but also a great listener who never sucks up all the oxygen in the room. All the things people like about him are real.’
Reflecting on his selection for the 2009 Presidents Cup, Scott said: ‘Greg as the captain had a lot of faith in me and made me a pick. There is no hiding in a Presidents Cup and I used that as a real motivator and a way to make myself believe I was a great player again. It was a really big boost for me.’ There was always a wonderful rhythm to Scott’s swing, which looked uncannily like that of Woods when both were taught by Butch Harmon. The final key for Scott was sorting out his putting, which he did by turning to a long-handled putter early in 2011, initially trialling it on Norman’s putting green in Florida.
He almost won the Masters that year and his confidence started to build. In 2012, he was four ahead with four to play in the Open Championship at Royal Lytham. While Els birdied the last hole, Scott ended up bogeying the last four holes to lose by one. Els was elated to win a second Open but sorry for his ‘good buddy Scotty’. He need not have worried. Scott handled himself with great decorum, so much so that few could bring themselves to label his collapse as ‘Normanesque’. Scott was adamant: ‘Next time, and I’m sure there will be a next time, I can do a better job of it.’
And next time, he did. ‘Lytham gave me more belief that I could win a major,’ he said at the 2013 Masters. ‘It proved to myself I could. The difference was that last time I played 14 good holes but this time I played 20 good ones.’ Scott was one of three Australians, along with Day and Marc Leishman, battling to end the Augusta curse. When Scott holed his putt on the 72nd green, he roared: ‘C’mon Aussie.’
‘I knew it was time for me to step up and show how much I wanted it,’ he said. ‘I was pumped. I thought I’d won but only for a split second.’ There was still a playoff to come but out of Scott’s sight at the time, Leishman celebrated his countryman’s putt with his own fist pump. When he found out later, due to a photograph taken from a particular angle which had Leishman in the background, Scott was touched that a player who had also hoped to earn a green jacket that day could be glad for his friend. ‘I was just hoping he would hole the putt – for him, for Australian golf, for everything it meant,’ Leishman said.
Angel Cabrera, the big man from Argentina who won the 2009 Masters, tied with Scott and almost won the playoff when he nearly chipped in at the 18th. ‘My heart was about to stop and I was thinking, is this it, really?’ Scott said. Norman tweeted at the time: ‘The golfing gods can’t be this mean to Australia.’ He said later: ‘It was the first time I was on the other side of the fence and praying for someone else to do something special.’
The golf over the last hole of regulation and the two playoff holes was spectacular and only ended when Scott holed for a birdie on the 10th green. ‘I knew that was my chance, it was getting too dark,’ he said. Not seeing the line clearly because of the gloom, Scott called in caddie Steve Williams, the New Zealander who was Tiger’s long-time bagman, who advised that it was ‘at least two cups outside the hole’. ‘It was a great read,’ Scott said. ‘He was my eyes on that one.’
Scott was quick to give credit to Norman: ‘A part of this belongs to him.’ He added: ‘What an incredible day. Everything fell my way in the end. I am so proud of myself and everyone who has helped me. I am a proud Australian and I hope this sits well at home and even in New Zealand – we were a trans-Tasman combo with Steve on the bag.’ It did sit well. The Australian proclaimed a new national hero under the headline ‘Scott banishes Masters hoodoo’. The Sydney Morning Herald said: ‘In Australian pantheon, Scott’s first among equals.’
When he returned home in November, Scott was feted everywhere he went. Not since Norman had the game Down Under enthralled to such a popular Pied Piper. Huge crowds came out to watch him win the Australian PGA Championship, the Australian Masters, the World Cup for Australia alongside Day, and he only just missed out on the Aussie Triple Crown when Rory McIlroy stole the Australian Open away at the 72nd hole. Mike Clayton, another Aussie player turned scribbler, wrote: ‘Scott, as is his way, took the loss with grace. For a month he has signed autographs, spoken at dinners arranged in his honour, had hundreds if not thousands of photographs taken with green-jacketed arm around adoring fans. What is more impressive is he looked like he enjoyed every step of the journey. He never once looked like he was doing us a favour by being here when he could have been sunning himself in Bermuda.
‘Scott is a throwback to the generation of Thomson and Nagle, outwardly modest men who understood their golf scores were not the most important things in the world, and he surely will win a lot more.’
Nandina
Hole 17
Yards 400; Par 4
BY STRANGE coincidence, three months after overcoming a six-stroke deficit to Greg Norman at the Masters, Nick Faldo found himself starting the final round of the Open at Royal Lytham six shots behind Tom Lehman. Lightning did not strike twice. In fact, it would be a long wait for an Englishman to win a major championship again, although the European golfing success story continued with José María Olazábal winning the Masters in 1999 and Paul Lawrie winning the Open at Carnoustie the same year.
Tiger Woods took home many of the major titles as the new millennium got under way and it was not until Carnoustie in 2007 that Padraig Harrington got the ball rolling again in winning the Open. The Dubliner prevailed again the following year and added the US PGA a couple of weeks later. Now it was Northern Ireland to the fore with Graeme McDowell taking the US Open in 2010 – in the same year Germany’s Martin Kaymer won the US PGA – and then Rory McIlroy winning the 2011 US Open and the 2012 US PGA, both by eight strokes, while Darren Clarke nipped in for the 2012 Open at Sandwich.
There was a time, after Faldo faded from the upper echelons, that England could barely muster a male golfer in the top 100 in the world. When Paul Casey became England’s leading golfer according to the world rankings, he said: ‘That’s nice, but the problem is that England’s best golfer is only 27th in the world.’ In time a batch of players, all of whom got into golf when Faldo was the main man, rose to the very top. Lee Westwood and Luke Donald have both been world number one, while Justin Rose and Ian Poulter also hit the world’s top ten. The major title, though, was lacking. Westwood, in particular, got close but his near miss at Muirfield in 2013 was his eighth top-three finish without ever being first.
By then, the drought had ended with Rose taking the US Open at Merion a month earlier. In a superlative performance on the final day, the 32-year-old South African-born golfer beat Phil Mickelson and Jason Day by two strokes. At the last, he hit a four-iron from beside the plaque celebrating Ben Hogan’s famous shot at the 1950 US Open. Rose hit another beauty just off the back of the green and made his par. On Father’s Day, he gave a nod to the heavens, acknowledging his dad, Ken, who died in 2002 but not before instilling the essential ingredients for golf and life in his son.
Rose was the teenage amateur who holed a wonder shot at the last to finish fourth in the Open at Birkdale in 1998 but then turned professional and missed his first 21 cuts. ‘He’s a classy guy,’ Faldo said after having lunch with Rose two weeks before the US Open. ‘No matter how many times he got knocked down, he still had self-belief.’
‘I don’t know why, but I could just tell that Justin was ready,’ Faldo later told the Daily Telegraph. ‘He had pieced it all together, got everything right in that relationship between swing and mind and, after being there a few times, was finally able to deal with it. You have to think that Justin’s becoming the complete gol
fer and I expect him to win more majors.’
Rose had achieved something not even Faldo had managed, winning America’s national championship. The list of English winners (barring early champions who had emigrated to the States as the country’s first professionals, along with many from Scotland) is a short but impressive one: Harry Vardon (1900), Ted Ray (1920) and Tony Jacklin (1970). Since the days of Vardon, Ray and J.H. Taylor, England’s golfers have usually been ploughing a lone furrow on the world stage – think of Henry Cotton, Jacklin and Faldo.
But Rose said: ‘There’s been a very strong crop of English players for quite some time now, with myself, obviously Westwood and then Donald and Poulter as well. Paul Casey was up there for a good while and is probably going to make a comeback, I think. I really hope it does inspire them.
‘I think it was always going to be a matter of time before one of us broke through. I always hoped it was going to be me, obviously.’ Casey, in fact, claimed his first win for two and a half years, most of them spent battling injuries, only two weeks later and admitted he was inspired by his old friend.
But the person who did most to inspire Rose was Adam Scott. When Rose texted his congratulations to the Australian for his Masters win, Scott wrote back that he was next. ‘I feel like it’s our time,’ Scott added. The pair shared a joint celebration later in the year at their homes in the Bahamas. ‘I couldn’t be happier for him,’ Scott said. ‘You can see when a guy is ready and I saw that in Justin.’ Just before the Masters, Rose had beaten Scott a couple of times in practice rounds. ‘The good thing for him about me winning the Masters was that it probably fired him up even more. Sometimes that’s all you need.’
