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Greg Norman, playing out of a bunker, has two rounds of par 70 at Royal Birkdale. |
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SOUTHPORT, England – As curtain calls go, the scene unfolding amid the ancient dunes at Royal Birkdale yesterday surely would rank among the most compelling golf has seen in a long time.
With a misty sheet of rain wrapped like a shroud around the northwest coast of Merseyside, a golfer given up for dead walked up the 18th fairway to a standing ovation, waving and smiling, his hat doffed to reveal the still ample and familiar shock of blond hair with a touch of gray.
Greg Norman, newly wed and on his honeymoon with tennis great Chris Evert, had just dropped in to take the lead in the 137th British Open. With two rounds of par 70, he had withstood the vicious combination of wind and rain that had buffeted the coast for two days and – until K.J. Choi passed him by one stroke just before nightfall – was the only golfer to win the battle against the tough, old links course.
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K.J. Choi shows his delight after a birdie putt on the 18th for a 3-under 67 in the second round.
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Norman will be in the final pairing with Choi today, one stroke ahead of 26-year-old Camilo Villegas, the promising Colombian player who had eight birdies, including five straight to close his round of 65.
At 2-over-par 142 is a group of seven that includes the three co-leaders from the first round – Rocco Mediate, Graeme McDowell and Robert Allenby, each of whom shot 73 yesterday – and the also-resurrected David Duval, the former world No. 1 who had slipped into a tie for No. 1,087. Duval shot 69.
With all these subplots battling for attention, Norman, a 53-year-old who spends more time playing tennis with his wife than competitive golf, stole the spotlight. He has not won an official professional event in 10 years, but as he moved toward the 18th green with his impossibly white teeth glistening, looking slowly left and right to acknowledge the deafening cheers, there was no doubt what was happening.
Here was the reappearance of the Great White Shark, swimming in ever-tightening circles around the Open, as if he and the old caddie Linn Strickler had gone through a time portal to the 1980s.
“H.G. Wells,” said Strickler, his craggy face brightening into a smile.
“Yeah, of course you feel like you're stepping back in time,” said Norman, who was No. 1 for a total of 331 weeks between September 1986 and January 1998. “My expectations were almost nil coming in, to tell you the truth. I hadn't played a lot of golf. Expectations are still realistically low, and I have to be that way, too, because I can't sit here and say, 'OK, it's great, I'm playing well and I'm doing it.'
“Well, I am playing well, I am doing it, but I still haven't been there for a long time.”
A very long time. His last real shot at a major championship was in 1996, when he went into the final round of the Masters with a six-stroke lead, shot 78 and lost by five strokes to Nick Faldo, who shot 67. There are those who remember him almost exclusively for that. He is also the only golfer to have lost a playoff in each of the four majors – the 1984 U.S. Open, the '87 Masters, the 1990 British Open and the '93 PGA Championship. Others remember him for that.
Larger than life, win or lose, Norman has always known how to command golf's stage. It is not just his formidable physical presence – which Evert describes by outlining a V with her hands in the air, starting with the broad shoulders down the narrow hips.
His aura also comes from movement, a walk that consumes distance with unhurried strides, a golf swing that flashes with power, even still. Whether windblown and victorious at Turnberry in '86, or bent and broken at Augusta National in '96, he overwhelms the occasion and owns the moment. He could do the same at Royal Birkdale, where inexplicably, and simultaneously, he has found his game and peace of mind.
“My life is great,” he said. “I've got a wonderful wife, and my whole being that's going on around here is just beautiful, to tell you the truth.”
