Fearless Faldo reels in Great White Shark
IT HAS been 25 years since one of the most calamitous meltdowns in sport and Sir Nick Faldo has still never spoken to Greg Norman about it.
Time is a great healer and Norman has dealt with worse since – he was in hospital twice with coronavirus at Christmas – but the Aussie’s Masters collapse in 1996 remains too sensitive a subject for the two legends to pore over.
In normal circumstances Faldo’s Sunday 67 – the low round of the weekend – to claim a third Green
Jacket would have taken its place in Augusta folklore. But instead it was Norman’s tragi-comic 78 which commanded all the attention.
The man known as ‘The Great White Shark’ was 41 by then and had won two Opens but had developed a reputation of letting chances slip away. Chasing his elusive first Masters, it appeared to be there for the taking as he headed into the final round with a six-shot lead over Faldo in the final group.
“As I came out of the locker room that Saturday night, I saw Peter Dobereiner, a pipe-smoking English golf writer,” recalled Norman. “He said: ‘Even you can’t f*** this up.’
“I tried to laugh it off. I can’t honestly say that I did. About 12 hours later, I woke up in our rental house. It was Masters Sunday and something was wrong.
“I felt like my feet, hips and shoulders were all out of alignment. I went for a walk in the neighbourhood, trying to sort it out. I couldn’t.”
He was in the trees off the first tee and, as the physical issues leaked into the mental, Norman fell apart in front of Faldo’s eyes.
By the 12th the Englisman was two shots clear and, after drilling a magnificent 2-iron into the heart of the 13th green to set up a birdie, he never looked back.
It was an incredible triumph but the embrace on the final green for Norman was one born of compassion, not triumphalism. Norman was searingly honest at his mega-choke afterwards. “I screwed up. It’s all on me. I know that,” he said, sadly.