Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 19, 1993 TAG: 9307190028
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SANDWICH, ENGLAND LENGTH: Long
Not this time.
"The Shark" showed the guts and brilliance of a champion Sunday, going up against his nemesis, Nick Faldo, and beating him flat out to capture a second British Open title and card the lowest score in the tournament's 122 years.
Norman buried his face in his hands for a moment before checking over his card in the scorer's trailer, then looked up and sighed heavily. He had played the best golf of his life, he knew. He had beaten Royal St. George's as no one ever did. But just as important, maybe even more so, he had beaten Faldo.
"We have been rivals for years, and to win this time means more than anything," Norman said after winning by two strokes with a final round 6-under-par 64 that gave him a total of 267.
"I said he is not infallible. He's a great player, but he can be beaten. If I admitted that he was the No. 1 guy, it would be admitting that he was better than me. I don't think that - ever.
"I'm not a person who boasts, but I'm just in awe of myself for the way I hit the golf ball today," he said.
In a dozen Opens at Royal St. George's, only one other winner had broken par for the tournament. Bill Rogers posted 276 in 1981, and Norman made that look ridiculous. Tom Watson held the record for any British Open, 268 at Turnberry in 1977, and Norman wiped that out, too.
Norman was hardly the only one in awe. After his second shot on 18, partner Bernhard Langer, third at 270, applauded him and told him as they walked down the fairway:
"It's the greatest golf I've ever seen my life."
At the award ceremony, moments before Norman received the silver claret jug, 91-year-old Gene Sarazen, the first golfer to complete a career Grand Slam, looked at the leader board and told the crowd:
"I've never seen such golf. Are those football scores?"
This wasn't the Norman who had gone into a deep funk after his 76-67 thrashing by Faldo in the third round of this tournament three years ago. For two years, Norman couldn't win and couldn't figure out why he was blowing leads.
"When I was down and out I said to myself, `Is it worth it?' " said Norman, 38, who won his only other major in the 1986 British Open. "The disappointments are still there. But the relief came when I refocused after the bad periods I had in 1991 and 1992. I hated those down periods because I'm competitive."
Norman led going into the last round of all four majors in 1986, but won only the British. The most tormenting loss came in the PGA Championship when Bob Tway holed out of a bunker on his last shot to win. At the Masters next spring, Larry Mize holed a running chip from 120 feet on the first hole of a playoff to steal the green jacket. In 1990, Robert Gamez holed a 7-iron on the final hole at Bay Hill. Just two weeks later, David Frost did in Norman again, this time from a bunker.
Yet no loss hurt him as much as what Faldo did to him at the 1991 British Open at St. Andrews. The two went out as co-leaders at 12-under for the third round. Norman lost 9 strokes to Faldo, and promptly slid into the most prolonged slump of his career.
Faldo patted him on the shoulder Sunday, said, "Well done, Greg," and acknowledged he knew how hard it had been on Norman.
"It's very easy to handle the pressure when you're playing well, in the limelight," Faldo said. "But when you're not playing well, it really wears on you."
On Sunday, Norman went out trailing Faldo by a stroke and thought he'd need a 66 to win after seeing the low scores early the day - including Payne Stewart's 63 that matched the Open record Faldo tied in the second round.
"If I'd shot 66," Norman mused at the end, "we'd still be out there playing right now."
Norman breezed through the round with seven birdies, taking his only bogey at 17 when a 14-inch putt hit the back of the cup and bounced out.
He called that bogey a "blessing in disguise" because he made him focus on closing out this championship.
"When I did miss it, my stomach kind of fell, no question about it," he acknowledged. "Probably more from embarrassment that anything else. It was an embarrassment to think I could be that lackadaisical in a major championship."
But on the 18th, he hit a perfect tee shot and beautiful approach onto the flat of the green. Before he putted, he got into a crouch, put his head in his hands and breathed deeply, concentrating hard as he ever had. When he two-putted for par, he raised his arms, beckoned his wife Laura and picked her up to hug her.
"I think it's a tremendous relief for him to finally win again," she said. "All those things people said about him were so unfair."
Norman called Faldo "the most tenacious golfer on the planet right now," but on this day that could easily have described Norman.
Faldo, serenaded by the gallery with "Happy Birthday" just before he teed off, started just after a brief downpour had helpfully softened the course again. Patches of blue broke through the chalky sky, but the wind was mild and conditions couldn't have been better.
Faldo, 36, watched impatiently from the tee with co-leader Corey Pavin as Norman hit a wedge to 4 feet of the first hole right in front of them and matched birdies with Langer.
Those birdies immediately locked all four players in a four-way tie at 8-under and the race was on.
Faldo had a chance to get back his 1-stroke lead, but his chip from 40 feet on the fringe of the green barely eluded the hole. Pavin then two-putted from 6 feet for a bogey to fall and fell off the lead. He never shared it again.
After Norman parred No. 2, Faldo regained the lead by hitting an iron from the fairway 4 feet past the pin and sinking that birdie putt to go 9-under.
That lead vanished moments later when Norman sank a 30 foot putt on No. 3. Faldo then lost the lead for good on No. 4 when he pitched his second shot from the fairway to the thick back fringe, 30 feet past the pin. He chipped out right over the left lip of the hole, missing a birdie as the crowd gasped, then moaned. The ball rolled 3 feet past the cup, but Faldo ran that back along the same edge and 18 inches beyond. A shocked look on his face, his hands on his hips, he stood immobile and incredulous before finally going around the ball and knocking it down.
That apparent birdie, which disintegrated into a bogey, meant a two-stroke turnaround and forced Faldo to chase Norman the rest of the day.
The back of Faldo's red shirt was soaked with sweat as he strode angrily to the fifth, his bid for a fourth Open title evaporating. He dumped his next drive into the first of three successive bunkers on the left, made a fine blind shot to the flag, but missed a 15-footer by inches. It was obvious right there that the magic he produced in winning a year ago was missing on this day.
Instead, Norman wielded the magic putter, holing a 15-footer on No. 6 to pull ahead by two strokes at 10-under.
Faldo didn't collapse. He sank a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 6 to get back within a stroke and smiled broadly for the first time all day. But he had none of the mastery of Royal St. George's that he showed in his course-record 63 in the second round.
Norman was the master this time, almost hitting the pin with his second shot on No. 9 and leaving the ball a foot away. He tapped it in for a birdie to go 11 under, taking the two-stroke lead he'd carry to the end.
by CNB