I don’t think so, but I sure will be pulling for him. We mid-50 year olds have to stick together.
If Norman can pull it off, his victory should put to rest one of the cruelest golf jokes of recent lore:
Q: What is the English pronunciation of Jean Van de Velde, the Frenchman who blew the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie by taking a triple-bogey 7 on the final hole and then losing in a playoff?
A: Greg Norman
Daniel Wexler passes along the following analysis of Norman’s remarkable career from The Book of Golfers:
Among the most striking and exciting golfers ever to play the game, Queensland’s Gregory John Norman (b.Mt Isa 2/10/1955) may not rank as highly as Tom Watson, Seve Ballesteros or Nick Faldo on most all-time lists, yet he was arguably golf’s most captivating figure between the reigns of Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. A typically sports-oriented Australian youth, Norman only took up golf after caddying for his low-handicap mother at age 16, then worked his way down to scratch within two years. Pondering a career in the Australian air force, Norman instead turned professional after winning the Queensland Junior title, working briefly in Sydney, then for a longer stint at the Royal Queensland GC where he apprenticed for the man who would be his primary teacher, the well-known Charlie Earp.
By 1976 Norman was ready to compete around Australia – so ready, in fact, that he won his fourth start, Adelaide’s West Lakes Classic, over a strong professional field. Like many an ambitious Aussie before him, Norman spent the next three years playing largely abroad, taking five titles in Europe and Asia as well as four more in his homeland. By 1979 he was beginning to approach the game’s highest levels when a missed putt of 4’ at the 72nd cost him the Australian Open. But with a work ethic to match his raw talent, Norman continued his steady improvement and took the national title for the first time the following year, by one over Brian Jones at The Lakes GC in Sydney. The victory led to an invitation to the Masters and it was at Augusta in 1981 that America got its first look at a player whose attacking style, charisma and white-blond hair made for ideal golf television. Norman would finish fourth in this Masters debut, entertaining the media with tales of shark hunting which, inevitably, spawned his famous “Great White Shark” nickname. Three months later he added joint fourth at the PGA Championship in Atlanta, and a new international star was born.
Generally considered the longest straight driver in history, Norman soon began playing regularly in America where his aggressiveness and larger-than-life personality ticketed him as the logical heir apparent to Palmer, Nicklaus and Watson. Frequently he seemed capable of living up to the hype, such as the summer of 1984 when, within a five-week span, he won twice (at the Kemper and Canadian Opens), lost to Tom Watson in a playoff for the Western Open, then endured an 18-hole playoff loss to Fuzzy Zoeller in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. This, of course, was one of the modern era’s most memorable Opens with Norman blowing his approach to the 72nd into a grandstand before ultimately holing a 50’ putt for par. Back in the fairway, thinking that Norman had made birdie, Zoeller waved the white towel of surrender – but on Monday it would be Norman who yielded when Fuzzy took the playoff with a sparking 67.
The loss at Winged Foot led to some talk – at that time largely misplaced – of Norman as a choker, and his unique “Saturday Slam” of 1986 hardly helped. For in that remarkable season, Norman indeed led all four Majors after 54 holes, yet won only the Open Championship, his most crushing defeat coming at the PGA where Bob Tway holed a famous bunker shot at 72nd for victory. Such a loss can only happen once a lifetime, one might assume, but at the 1987 Masters Norman endured another notorious lightning bolt when Larry Mize drained a 45-yard pitch to snatch victory on the second hole of sudden death. Three years later David Frost would hole a bunker shot at the last to edge Norman in New Orleans, and then, barely a month later, Robert Gamez would beat him at Bay Hill by actually holing a full 176-yard 7 iron at the last!
The gods, then, were not always with him, but Norman often generated his own misery, including a badly blocked 4 iron at the 72nd which cost him a playoff with Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters, a disappointing 76 in a much-anticipated third-round duel with Nick Faldo at the 1990 Open Championship and the saddest of them all, the final-round 78 that eviscerated a seemingly insurmountable six-shot lead, allowing Faldo to win the 1996 Masters with a closing 67.
But if Norman is to be vilified for these losses, he must also be credited with some of modern golf’s greatest work. In 1990, for example, he closed the Doral Open with a scorching 62, then won in a playoff by eagling the first extra hole – a 12-under-par total for 19 holes. Even more impressive, however, were rounds played during his two Major titles, the 1986 and ’93 Open Championships. In 1986, after opening with a weather-induced 74, Norman uncorked an almost unbelievable second-round 63 in dismal conditions, a round which stood only three putts at both the 17th and 18th away from perhaps being the greatest ever played. Then in 1993, he stormed home at Royal St George’s with a near-perfect closing 64 to beat Nick Faldo by two, a round described by Gene Sarazen as “the most awesome display of golf I have ever seen.”
A fitness devotee, Norman retained his world-class skills well into his 40s, winning twice in 1997 at age 42, then taking his own homeland event, the Greg Norman Holden Invitational, a year later. Today he rides herd over Great White Shark Enterprises, a highly successful international business conglomerate, while receding slowly from the competitive scene. But whatever critics may say regarding his career, two Open Championships, more than 80 wins worldwide, 29 top-10 finishes in Major championships and a record 331 total weeks ranked as the number one player in the world adds up to a large and impressive legacy, particularly when judged against the field as opposed to a generalized sense of expectations. Further, no player between Nicklaus and Woods has loomed larger over the game, or brought more excitement – and epic struggle – to its playing fields.