Faldo/Norman (13 page)

As the defending champion, Crenshaw had to stay around even though he missed the cut. He would be required to present the green jacket to the new champion at the close of play on Sunday. ‘I’m going to stay right here and be an interested bystander,’ said the Texan. The last defending champion to miss the cut was Lyle in 1989, while Nicklaus (1967), Tommy Aaron (1974) and Ballesteros in 1981 and 1984 had all suffered the same fate. It would happen to Faldo in 1997, his only weekend duties being to present Woods with his first green jacket.

But in Friday’s second round of the 60th Masters, Faldo had some catching up to do. He teed off three groups before the final pairing of Norman and Mickelson, six shots behind the leader. That became seven when he bogeyed the 1st hole. He got that shot back at the par-five 2nd and did not drop another. He hit a wedge to six feet on the 7th and holed a downhill 20-footer at the 10th. He got up-and-down for a par on the 11th and admitted he got lucky when he was able to play the 12th when it was ‘flat calm’.

A blocked drive into the trees at the 13th initially gave him thoughts of playing his second shot down the 14th fairway (over on the right, coming back in the opposite direction), but the crowd was too big to move. Instead, he snap-hooked a five-iron back to the 13th fairway and got up-and-down for a four. He was over the back of the 15th but got down for a four there as well. As his pairing with Faxon had fallen behind the players in front, they had been observed by a rules official from the 12th hole. On the 14th, Faldo received a bad time for taking too long over a shot, which only meant a warning. Faldo, like Langer and others, might be meticulous in the extreme but were too professional to have another bad time and risk a shot penalty. ‘Miraculously, by the time we got to 15, we were waiting for the group in front… so tell me more,’ Faldo queried afterwards.

At the last he hit a wedge to 12 feet and closed with his sixth birdie of the round. With rounds of 69 and 67, Faldo was at eight under par and lying second, four behind Norman and two clear of third place. ‘I’m obviously very pleased because Greg was way ahead and going along nicely,’ he said. ‘I’ve really taken every chance I was given today. I was pleased about the scrambling I did; 13 and 15 were great. That was a very good round of golf for me.’

Not since 1994 had Faldo been near the top of the leader-board at a major and not since 1993 had he been quite so in the thick of it. ‘It’s nice to be in contention again in a major,’ he said. ‘That’s what it’s about. That’s what we play for.’

He added: ‘Who knows what will happen with four strokes? You just keep going, playing the best you can. It looks like Greg’s in control of everything the way he’s going, so you’ve got to do the same thing.’ For the first time in a major championship since the third round of the 1990 Open Championship, the next day Faldo and Norman would be playing together. A former world number one and the current world number one. ‘Like I said, I’m going to play my own game,’ Faldo reiterated as his press conference drew to a close. ‘I’ll worry about little old me first.’

T
IM GLOVER
wrote in
The Independent
on Saturday 13 April 1996: ‘When Bobby Jones, the moving spirit behind Augusta National, first set eyes on Jack Nicklaus he remarked that he played a game with which he was not familiar. There were many here echoing similar sentiments about Greg Norman following his blazing start in the 60th Masters but yesterday a familiar figure moved into his slipstream. This afternoon Norman will not only have to contend with the course but with Nick Faldo. We know that the Australian can cope with Augusta National but it is by no means clear that he can handle the Englishman with the same degree of confidence.’

By the 7th hole of the final round, with Norman still four strokes in front, it was not clear to what degree of confidence the leader could resist the challenger. Back on Friday evening, Norman was asked indirectly about the challenge of playing with Faldo in the third round but the answer did not contain the name of his great rival. ‘How much attention do you pay, Greg, to the names on the board and who’s coming at you? Do you know about the different people and what their make-up is?’

Norman answered: ‘Well, I don’t think it’s the names. The
guys that are on the leaderboard now are playing good golf, irrespective of who they are. You’ve got guys who have won many major championships up there. You expect to see that name-wise, but you don’t pay attention to it because you’ve got to do the job yourself.’

He was later asked specifically about playing with Faldo. On Thursday he had played with Fuzzy Zoeller and on Friday he had played with Phil Mickelson. ‘Irrespective of who you play with, you play your own game. Whoever I play with I’ll enjoy playing with over the weekend. I like Fuzzy. I like Phil. I’ll enjoy playing with Nick tomorrow. We’re all out there playing our own game and trying to win.’

Faldo had said the same just moments before: ‘I’ll worry about little old me first.’ But when Faldo played his own game, and Norman played his own game, and they did that together, history suggested Faldo played his game better. The last time they had been paired together in a major championship had been in the third round of the 1990 Open at St Andrews. The scores that day were Faldo 67 and Norman 76.

Faldo did not always get the better of Norman. In their early days on the European Tour, they were part of an ensemble cast along with the likes of Sandy Lyle and Bernhard Langer, and although the main attraction was Seve Ballesteros, Norman, with his shock of blond hair and attacking game, was not far behind. Between 1980 and 1986, Norman and Ballesteros between them divided up the World Match Play Championship at Wentworth. Norman won three times in 1980, 1983 and 1986, and Ballesteros the other four times (he went on to equal Gary Player’s record of five victories before Ernie Els broke that mark with seven titles). The
36-hole matches over the West Course, often played in glorious autumnal sunshine, produced some thrilling head-to-head battles and the event was considered one of the highlights of the year, a fitting finale to the British season. Norman and Faldo met there twice, with the Australian winning both times.

On his debut in 1980, Norman was seeded into the quarterfinals so his first match was against Faldo. It was cold and wet and at lunch he was four down after the first 18 holes. He got two holes back at the turn in the afternoon and a mistake from Faldo at the last meant the match went to extra holes. A birdie at the 16th gave Norman victory at the 38th hole. It was pretty dark by then but the Aussie had claimed a classic come-from-behind win and two days later, although taken all the way by Lyle, he hung on for a one-hole victory in the final.

Norman and Ballesteros only butted heads twice in the World Match Play and never in a final. The honours were shared but the Australian won a particularly thrilling match when they met in the semi-finals in 1983. Ballesteros made the crucial error at the 35th before the last hole was halved in birdies to give Norman a one-hole win. In the final he faced Faldo, who was enjoying his best ever season with five titles on the European Tour, including a run of three in a row. The match was tight, all square at lunch before Norman pulled away to go two up at the 9th in the afternoon. Birdies at the 11th and the 16th gave him a 4 and 2 victory.

Faldo would go on to win the title twice, in 1989 and 1992. By then he had revamped his swing with David Leadbetter and become hardened under the pressure of major championship victories. Consequently, his duels with Norman went up a notch in the 1990s when they were the best two players in the world. Norman still held the top spot when they met at the Australian Masters at Huntingdale in February 1990. Faldo was only just starting out on what would be an historic season but both he and
Norman scored rounds of 68 and 67 to share the halfway lead. They played together over the last 36 holes, with Faldo’s 68 on day three giving him a two-shot lead over Norman after 54 holes.

Norman fell four behind when he had a double bogey at the 6th in the final round but on one of his favourite courses, the home star knew he had to get extremely aggressive and he bounced back with an eagle at the next hole. He added four birdies in the remaining 11 holes for a 68 and ended up winning by two from Faldo, who fell back into a tie for second place with Mike Clayton and John Morse. ‘It was a great struggle, I enjoyed it every step of the way,’ Norman said. ‘You get someone as tough as Nick and he gives you no quarter. That’s great because it means you have to make it happen yourself. It’s the best way of winning.’

Faldo, still considered a par-machine since winning the 1987 Open at Muirfield with 18 of them on the final day, had shown he was also perfectly capable of producing birdies, with 20 of them on one of Melbourne’s classic sandbelt courses. He reflected: ‘I used to be able to win by playing conservatively but not any more. There are just too many good players around these days.’ It was an important victory for Norman, his sixth in the Australian Masters, which awards a gold jacket for the winner, but Faldo was not too distressed. ‘I’ll be over it in half an hour,’ he said. ‘Say a few rude words and it’s all out of the system.’

Only a few months later and the contrasting twosome met again at St Andrews. By now Faldo was in the ascendancy. He had successfully defended the title at the Masters and only just missed out on the playoff at the US Open in which Hale Irwin beat Mike Donald. Arriving at the home of golf he was in a confident mood. Norman regularly went into a tournament expecting to contend
at the end of the week. Faldo rarely did, but this occasion was an exception. ‘From the moment I arrived in the auld grey toun, I knew that, given the form I was in, I had but one man to beat – Greg Norman,’ Faldo wrote in
Life Swings
. ‘At the Monday night dinner for past champions, which is only held at St Andrews, the first person I bumped into outside the clubhouse was the Great White Shark. We shook hands and I stared him in the eyes like Muhammad Ali used to do in the middle of the ring, as if to say, “Let’s shake hands and come out fighting.” ’

Norman had suffered a couple of shattering defeats on the PGA Tour that spring, to the last-gasp hole-outs of Robert Gamez and David Frost, and he had missed the cut at the Masters. But he finished fifth at the US Open at Medinah and now got off to his best start at the Open, a six-under 66 without a dropped shot. Faldo had gone along steadily but bogeyed the 17th and saw from the scoreboard at the final hole that he was three behind leaders Norman and Michael Allen. A two-wood off the last tee came up 40 yards short and left of the green and he then played the most delightful pitch-and-run with an eight-iron which ran through the Valley of Sin, over a ridge and onto the green and into the hole for an eagle two. Even playing partner Scott Hoch, whom Faldo beat in a playoff at the 1989 Masters and whose unflattering opinion of the Englishman had been spiced up in some of the newspaper preview stories, muttered: ‘Good shot.’

Norman again scored a 66 the next day. He had a couple of bogeys this time but still had six birdies, including four in a row from the 7th. Faldo was playing three groups behind so their paths crossed at the Loop, where the holes turn back on each other at the far end of the course. While Faldo lined up a putt on the 8th, Norman, playing the 10th, was holing for birdie on the other side of the shared green. Norman continued his surge by holing a full sand-wedge shot for an eagle at the 14th, somewhat
ironically given his playing companions were Gamez and Bob Tway, both men to have caused Norman pain with ridiculous hole-outs.