Faldo/Norman (35 page)

Greg, what are you going to do with all the money? ‘All the money?’ The $40 million and the other millions. ‘Keep going, don’t just stop. Well, my kids are secure for the rest of their lives. My kids’ kids will be secure. That’s what hard work’s all about. People might be envious of an athlete making a lot of money but… there’s smart business decisions. The way you approach life, the way you play the game, the way you capitalise on things, I’ve done those. I’ve done them rather successfully.’

Is it ironic that the things you want most now are things you can’t buy? ‘Well, there’s a lot of things in life that I can’t buy. Don’t forget, money’s not everything.’

His performance at the microphone was scrutinised as much as his play on the course. ‘The generous interpretation of Norman’s lengthy, post-round press conference,’ Bill Fields wrote in
Golf World
(US), ‘is that Norman is what he says he is, a man more buoyant than a fishing cork, most satisfied that his family is financially secure beyond imagination. The harsher view is that Norman’s reputation, and all its bluster, precedes his achievements, as his critics have contended it always has. Norman is fond of saying better days are still ahead but he would need to achieve in his 40s what no golfer ever has in order to fulfil his competitive promise.’ By that measure it would go unfulfilled.

There was later time for more solitary reflection down by the beach by his home in Florida but first there was the flight home on his private jet, one of his ‘toys’. His agent at the time, Frank Williams, who had bet $10,000 on Norman at 14-1 at the start of the week and refused Dunhill owner Johan Rupert’s attempt to buy it off him for $100,000 on the Saturday night, recalled the scene.

‘Everybody was very upset,’ he told
Australian Golf Digest
. ‘I was with his wife and daughter, who are crying, I’m crying – I had a big bet, too, mind you and was going to make a lot of money, but
that’s another story. So Greg comes on to the plane and we’re all in tears, we’re all devastated. “I don’t understand you people. I get paid a lot of money to hit a little white ball from A to B better than anybody else. I’ve got millions of dollars, I own this plane, I’ve got an ocean-going boat that is second to none, I’ve got two helicopters, I’ve got a home in Florida you’d die for and I’ve got no education. What are you all crying for?”

‘He said, “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do – we’re going to stay on this plane until we’ve drunk it dry.” We used to carry a lot of booze. We took off, landed at West Palm Beach, taxied into the hangar and sat on the plane for four hours until every drop of booze had gone. He was fantastic! And I know it was probably one of the biggest disappointments of his life but he handled it so well, cheered everybody up.

‘It was a very interesting time in my life to be working for him and with him and I considered it an honour and I still do. I hear negative things about him but I also know all the positives and there is a lot more to Greg Norman than people realise. He’s the best father you’ll ever meet. I’ve seen him sit at his kitchen table with the kids and just explain certain things to them that I wouldn’t know how to do with my own kids. He’s terrific.’

Faldo was next in the interview room. ‘I guess I don’t know where to begin after that,’ he said. ‘We’ve had an amazing day. I honestly and genuinely feel sorry for Greg, what he’s going through. But as I said last night, I set out with a goal to shoot 65-66 and I shot 67, which is still the best round of the day and then things turned around. And by the time we went through 12, I had a two-shot lead. Then it was mine to lose. I was doing my huffing and puffing exercises and concentrating hard on what
I was doing and tried to just play as well as I could, as hard as I could, as solid as I could.

‘So I’m pleased with the way I played. I obviously didn’t think it was going to happen this week. My true goal was to come in and have a really good week. I thought that would be good after a couple of years of sharing the heat in the majors. I played well, only made a couple of mistakes yesterday. I went out today and thought about being really smart with my club selection. You have to steer the ball in the right places this week. I obviously putted well, only three-putted once. If I was chipping, I was chipping well, never left any scary ones.’

How does this one compare to the other five majors, he was asked? ‘Well, they’re all different. This one’s an amazing one, isn’t it? I mean, I guess… I hope I’m remembered for shooting a 67 on the last day and storming through and not what happened to Greg. I’m obviously pleased with what I’ve done. But it’s going to be remembered for what happened to Greg.

‘To come back and finally be in contention for a major again and pull it off, it’s really pulling your nerves out there. I feel this has been more of a physical preparation. We’ve worked well, I’ve worked hard on how to practise and what I need to practise. It’s a process of putting all sorts of little things together and going out and doing it. But the big thrill, really, is to go out and do it on the day. You never know when you’ve got another win in you. It’s a great feeling to know you still have.’

Without tempting fate, how many majors do you think you might be capable of winning? ‘I’m just delighted to have scratched another on the board. You can’t say, can you? You can’t say what is going to happen. I like to think this is a springboard, that the game is going to go well at last and I can compete. If I can be competitive out there, then finishing them off is a different matter.’

Did you ever think what most of us were saying, I can’t believe this is happening? ‘To be honest, not really. I was out there doing my own thing. I’m in control of my golf ball and that’s it.’

Obviously, Greg’s had a lot of near misses. What do you think of his resilience? He keeps coming back. ‘I think he’s fantastic. He’ll go back and assess it all. The man’s got the drive and commitment, he’ll be back.’

To another question about Norman, he said: ‘He’s a great player, great competitor. He really is. Great guy, everything. He’s a credit to the game. And the game needs him out there all the time. You know, we’re all in charge of our own house. That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s as simple as that. He’ll be alright. I’m sure he’ll be alright.’ Do you actually feel sorry for him? ‘Yeah, I honestly, genuinely do. What he’s been through is horrible. As I said, it’s hard to be plastered and repair that. If it happened to me like that… as I said, I feel sorry for him. He’s had a real rough ride today.’

Because of the circumstances of the day, are you more low-key about this championship than the others? ‘You can imagine, it’s kind of difficult. Emotionally, I was feeling for Greg. We’ve had a very strange day. I’m pleased with what I’ve done but it’s obvious it was a strange atmosphere out there the last few holes.’

Faldo was, of course, right about the day being remembered for what happened to Norman but an appreciation for his own performance grew with time. A year later, he reflected: ‘Oh, I’m more than happy that the way I played has been recognised, more than happy. A lot of people are saying it was one of the best rounds in a major.’ And his assessment: ‘I think as a total package, it may be right there. In a way it was a perfect round. Some people think the perfect round’s going to be a 60 or whatever. But you’ve got to piece together the score and play across the board and go through all the emotion. That’s as good as it gets.’

Faldo’s point was that it was not just a birdie-fest in the opening round of a relaxed tournament at a resort course. This was the final round of the Masters at Augusta National. This was hardly ‘less than a victory’, to use the Gladwell phrase, because of Norman’s blow-up. It was enhanced because of what happened to the leader, because Faldo showed how the course had to be played on that day and, in the process, was not put off by the distraction of Norman’s collapse.

He missed only two greens, one of them by only inches, and one fairway, and dropped only one shot. For the week, he was second in fairways hit (52 out of 56) and tied for fourth in greens hit (51 out of 72). He was fifth on the putting table, with 112 putts for the week, partly because he took 31 putts on Sunday – he did not need to take fewer as often solid two-putting was the order of the day. His 67 was the lowest score achieved at the weekend.

On Sunday, Larry Mize and Davis Love, who finished joint seventh with Corey Pavin and Jeff Maggert, had 68s, while Nobilo and Maggert had 69s. On Saturday the best scores had been the 69s of Duffy Waldorf and David Duval. While Norman had played the first 36 holes in 132 strokes, Faldo played the last 36 holes, with the course playing ever more tricky over the weekend, in 141 strokes, one better than Nobilo and Waldorf, with Norman taking 149 for the second half of the tournament.

In
Life Swings
, Faldo wrote: ‘I had felt anything but confident before that last round against Greg at Augusta. As it turned out, the round proved to be my finest in terms of sustaining the mental stamina you need to commit to your routine before each and every shot as the pressure and atmosphere grows. This is something I am very proud of.’

In his 1999 book
Beyond the Fairways
, David Davies wrote: ‘In a career that is not yet over, nothing can be the absolutely definitive performance but it is safe to say that anything that beats the
final day of the 1996 Masters will be something the like of which has not yet been seen on a golf course. On that day, Faldo did superlatively the thing that he does best. He set himself to play fault-free golf, play to the absolute limits of his concentration, bear down relentlessly on his opponent and give him not a glimmer of encouragement.

‘He knew that if he did all these things, and that if a few putts were to drop as well, he might have a very distant chance of catching and maybe even forcing a playoff with the world number one, Greg Norman, who led the championship after three rounds by six shots. Norman had been brilliant all week; Faldo by his standards merely humdrum. Norman confessed he wanted nothing more in the whole world than a green jacket; Faldo already had two of them. Norman’s game might have been made for Augusta, Faldo has won there in spite of not being, ideally, long enough.

‘On that Augustan Sunday, Norman disintegrated but Faldo stayed steadfast and ignored the burning building, the crashing car, the sinking ship that was alongside him and simply played his own game. No one in world golf was better suited to that task and without hitting any scintillating shots, but without making a mistake, Faldo got round in 67 and won by five shots. It was a stunning upset, achieved mostly in silence, not because people did not appreciate what Faldo was doing but because they were distressed at what Norman was doing to himself.’

‘There was in the years of his prime something quietly beautiful about the relentless, slow-burning courage with which he played golf,’ Hugh McIlvanney wrote of Faldo in
Golf International
. ‘His balls were unbreakable.’

It is an oversimplification to attempt to sum up two whole careers in a single day. Yet the final round of the 1996 Masters offered so many insights into the lives of Nick Faldo and Greg Norman. The one thing it lacked was a glimpse of the most scintillating player in the game from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. But that was the point about Norman: when it came to grabbing hold of the very biggest titles, he was too often left grasping at thin air. Something was missing in his game, as were the trophies and a certain green jacket that should have sat beside his two claret jugs. This was his eighth and last runner-up finish in a major championship and only Arnold Palmer, with ten, and Jack Nicklaus (19) have recorded more. His conversion rate of chances into victories was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Faldo’s six wins from nine top-two finishes.

What happened that day? The mystery will remain whether Norman’s back was so much worse than the previous three days of the tournament, and not even he may be able to evaluate that now, being susceptible to hindsight. Tension was evident in his swing from the opening tee shot and in his regripping and fidgetiness the rest of the round. A couple of high-tariff shots, the second at the 9th, the chip at the 10th, were only marginally out but he had allowed himself no room for error. Then came the miserable splashes at the 12th and the 16th.