I love the Open Championship, love the hard-n-fast fairways, the links golf, all those venerable old and classic layouts, where Old Tom Morris inspired Walter Hagen who inspired Ben Hogan, and so on. You play at St Andrews, it’s like walking with giants.
Yet the Open Championship is not, as Seve Ballesteros promoted, held at St Andrews each year. There is a rota of courses, as there should be, and as there should be for the U.S PGA Championship, which should be shared with the PGAs of every country, another story, told in the May issue of our mag on Thursday, Jason Day is on the front.
But the Masters is always at Augusta. And that’s why it works. Each year the course is the star. And we’ve come to know it as we know our home track. And while Tiger, Jack and Arnold Palmer, and go back to Hogan, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen have owned it, in their ways, on occasion, Augusta remains the star. Augusta is unbeaten.
Yet what Augusta does best is tell stories. Glorious stories. Nicklaus won in 1963 and 1986, Woods in 1997 and 2019. And Greg Norman did not win ever, not even when he led by six strokes on Saturday night.
In 1996, the three old boys who ceremonially started it were Sarazen, Snead and Nelson, and there are bridges at Augusta named after these people. Some years, when they started, they’d hit their tee shots and keep on playing. After nine holes one year, Snead was 2-under. Then he and the boys went in to have lunch.
Into the first round and it was all Shark, wearing a stripy, button-up, sleeveless cardigan of sorts, and rocking that trademark Akubra straw. He went out in 30, wrote down 63, tying the course record with his mate, Nick Price. It was peak Shark at Augusta, as well as he’s played. He owned it – at least for a day.
Into round two and Norman conjured 69. In round three his 71 was bettered only by David Duval and Duffy Waldorf who posted 69. I’d forgotten that he played with Faldo that round. Forgotten that he hit one into Rae’s Creek and made bogey. Forgot that after 15 holes of round three, Faldo was seven shots behind…
Greg Norman’s ball-striking was exquisite at Augusta in 1996 – until it wasn’t. PHOTO: Getty Images
By 18 it was six shots. No-one had held a bigger lead since Ray Floyd led Nicklaus by eight in 1976.
“You really can’t think about the lead,” Norman offered post-round.
“You never know,” Faldo said. “Anything’s possible.”
And so, into the bar (and not the urinal as been suggested in lore) Norman went for a drink of water before the British Golf Digest contributor, Peter Dobereiner, sidled up to him and said: “Well, Greg, not even you could f*** this up, now”.
Sharky did his best to block it out. “Don’t react, Greg,” Norman told himself. “Block that out.”
But if you wanted to plant an ear-worm – and owned the solid brass balls of a half-cut hack to say something like that to Greg Norman at that time – you could’ve done worse.
And so, into Sunday April 14, 1996, or Monday morning our time in Australia. And the TV people showed us Norman missing a putt on 18 and losing to Nicklaus in ’86 and Larry Mize chipping in ’87.
“What goes through a man’s mind on a Masters Sunday?” asked commentator JIm Nantz. “Does he think about the past? Does he think about what might’ve been?”
“You have to battle those demons,” offered former champion and empath, Ben Crenshaw. “He has said this is the one he wants. His mind looks strong. We’ll see today.”
And so Norman and Faldo shook hands on the first tee, and from there, well, you’ve probably seen what happend from there.
Pull-hook drive, bogey on one. Birdie on two. Bogey on four. With 13 holes to play, it was still Norman by five.
And then as Norman fell, Faldo rose. In 13 holes there was a 10-shot swing.
“He’s gone up in my esimation,” said Greg Norman about Nick Faldo after the 1996 Masters at Augusta National. PHOTO: Getty Images.
On the 9th hole, Norman led by three and had wedge from 94 yards. He hit a super-high one that sucked right off the front. He had that in him, the great man, the work he put on the pill. Dud putt followed and bogey-five.
Norman by two. Nine to play.
He bogied 10, led by one. Bogied 11 – three putts from nowhere. A shocker. And they were tied at nine-under. You could say momentum favoured Faldo.
“I just hope he regroups and goes out there,” Price said of his mate. “He wants that green jacket more than anyone.”
Maybe too much. For there followed disaster. Into Rae’s Creek he went for a double. In four rounds he’d scored two, three, four, five. Faldo by two.
On 13 Norman blocked it into the pine straw right. His caddy, Tony Navarro, talked him into laying up. Normally, Sharky goes for that. Not this day. There followed an almost effete 8-iron. It was un-Shark. It was not his way. He was not himself.
Faldo took two-iron, smoked it. Easy birdie. Norman made one, too!
There was a brilliant putt on 14 for a par. Two down still. Four to play. Plenty. And over coffee and Coco Pops at 7:30am on the east coast of Australia, we thought, Hang on! Let’s go, Sharky. Let’s go…
On 15, wtih a six-iron from 200 yards, he caught a break, the ball stayed out of the water. His chip shaved the hole and Norman fell to the ground … you’ll have seen the image.
He still made birdie. But so did Faldo. And Norman was now running out of holes.
Then he ran out of luck.
On the storied 16th, the harpoon went into the Shark and pinned him to the boards. He had a crack at the tight left flag, hooked it into the drink. Missed by 30 yards left.
It was over.
Norman parred the last two while Faldo birdied 18 and recorded a brilliant 67, low round of the day. The pair then shared a lovely big hug, full of empathy.
“It brought tears to my eyes,” Norman said in the post-round presser. “For him to say to me under the circumstances … I won’t tell you what it was, you can ask him. But he’s gone way up in my estimation. It was extremely special.”
Asked what he’d said to Norman, Faldo said: “I just said, ‘I just want to give you a hug.’ There were a few other bits but you aren’t going to know.”
Another (great) story.
