Greg Norman was poised to add to his pair of British Open titles.
SOUTHPORT, England — The last time a golfer did what Greg Norman has a chance to do in the British Open, this name was Old Tom and the American Civil War had recently ended. So it is fitting that here in the land where 100-year-old golf courses are regarded as new, Norman is one step from rewriting his own history, and one of golf’s oldest records.
Move over, Old Tom Morris.
Norman, 53 years old and a newlywed, is leading the 137th British Open by two strokes after three rounds. He is taking dead aim at his third claret jug, and could break the record set in 1867 by Tom Morris, who at 46 became the oldest golfer to win an Open. Norman also could become the oldest winner of a major championship, surpassing Julius Boros, who at 48 won the 1968 P.G.A. Championship.
In a chaotic, often frantic day, winds gusting to 48 miles an hour pounded the Merseyside coast of northwest England. Norman — looking anything but old — blithely shot 72 for a 54-hole total of 212, two over par, the highest score for a third-round lead in half a century.
“I’d put it in the top three hardest rounds I’ve ever played under the circumstances,” said Norman, whose closest pursuers are the defending champion, Padraig Harrington, and the second-round leader, K. J. Choi, at four over. “I’ve played under tougher weather conditions, but under the circumstances, the third round of a major championship and on the Royal Birkdale golf course, it was just brutal today.”
How brutal? David Duval, who began the day three strokes out of the lead, shot 83 after starting with a triple bogey. In all, nine players scored 80 or higher and the field stroke average was 75.76, almost six strokes over par.
With his wife of three weeks, the tennis great Chris Evert, cheering him on, Norman once again turned back the clock and turned on the game that powered him to 78 professional titles in 13 countries, including British Open victories in 1986 at Turnberry and 1993 at Royal St. George’s.
It was a surreal performance from a man who has not been playing much competitive golf this year. Although he has missed three cuts in five combined appearances on the PGA Tour and the PGA European Tour, Norman kept his concentration in the brutal conditions while golfers half his age lost theirs.
Camilo Villegas, the 26-year-old Colombian, began the day in third place after a tournament-low 65 in the second round. But he shot himself out of contention with a 79. It happened suddenly. Villegas was the picture of serenity as he sat in a lotus position as three groups waited their turn to tee off at the backed-up 10th tee. Standing at four over par and very much in the game, Villegas then double-bogeyed the 10th, the start of a five-over-par slide in four holes. And that was that.
Norman, who had sat next to Villegas for a while as they waited, was preparing to grind away. He came back from his own double bogey at No. 10 with a birdie at the 201-yard, par-3 14th, hitting a 6-iron to 12 feet. Then he nearly eagled the 17th with a 25-foot putt that stopped just short. As a closing gesture, he grazed the left edge of the hole with a birdie chip after missing the 18th green, electrifying the crowded grandstands with a vintage ’80s jolt from the Great White Shark.
“I’m sure there are players probably saying, ‘My God, what’s he doing there?’ ” Norman said. “But I’ve played golf before. I’ve played successful golf before.”
Not for a while, and he almost did not this week. While he and Evert were honeymooning last week at Skibo Castle in the Scottish Highlands, he told her he was thinking about not playing in the Open because he was not prepared. Evert told him he ought to use the event as preparation for next week’s Senior British Open at Troon. Norman decided she was right, and went out to hit some golf balls. A swing thought occurred to him.
“I remembered that I used to stand closer to the ball,” he said after Friday’s round.
Now he is standing close to one of the most remarkable achievements in golf’s history. Although he is regarded as one of the best golfers of his generation, the major flaw on Norman’s record is that he has failed to win six of the seven times he had the 54-hole lead in a major championship.
He is aware that the last time he held a 54-hole lead, it was by six strokes over Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters. And he does not need to be reminded that he shot 78 and Faldo shot 67, and he never led another major. Until now.
There are people who will point to that as proof that Norman has no chance this time either, that too many things — history, his age, his lack of tournament play — are arrayed against him. Harrington, who with Choi is probably in the best position to deny Norman the title, does not buy it. Norman, he said, is capable of pulling it off.
“A lot of guys later on in their career, their interests move on, their goals in life change,” said Harrington, who will be in the final pairing with Norman. “But Greg seems to be back thinking about it this week, and he’s well capable of putting it together, as he’s shown in the first three rounds. I don’t think anybody should expect anything but good play from him tomorrow.”
Norman is dismissing questions about that now, preferring to wait to see what unfolds. He knows there are players below him who can beat him, even Simon Wakefield, the winless 34-year-old Briton who shot 70 Saturday and has the look of someone who is not afraid to win.
“Everybody has got the chance to win the golf tournament,” Norman said. “I think I made the comment at the start of this week, too, that there could be a dark horse who would have a chance around here because of the conditions, the way the golf course is set up.”
After all these years of being outside the cauldron of major championship Sundays, who would have believed the dark horse might be the Great White Shark himself?
No comments:
Post a Comment