Word: tournaments
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Unless things change, Greg Norman may enter the record books as the unluckiest golfer in modern history. Only twice have golfers chipped in from off the green on the final hole to win major tournaments. Both times, at the 1986 P.G.A. Championship and the 1987 Masters, Norman was the victim. He has placed second in two other majors, losing the 1986 Masters to Jack Nicklaus because of a wild 4-iron on the very last hole. Despite Olympian skills and what Nicklaus calls "virtually unlimited potential," Greg Norman has only one major-tournament victory under his belt; the Golden Bear...
...after dinner, he went out and gambled and won again, pitting his extraordinary hand-eye coordination against local pool hustlers. Norman has not forgotten the match-play skills he acquired during those early years. He is a three-time winner of the Suntory World Match-Play Championship, a British tournament that provides the sole opportunity for the world's top pros to compete head to head...
Then there is his blazing intensity. Whenever he sets foot on a course, he says, "it's as though I am going for my first trophy." For golf's Great White Shark, each tournament is an opportunity to recapture the "indescribable feeling" of walking the last few holes while in contention to win. It is then that the crowd seems to recede as Norman's concentration grows and he falls into that state of tunnel vision the pros call "owl's eyes." Pumped with adrenaline, he is usually hitting shots breathtakingly farther toward the end of a tournament. Nicklaus likens...
...necessarily to overpower a major tournament, as Norman is all too aware. Still, while other golfers with such abominable luck might be smashing their mashies and pulverizing their putters, Norman's confidence remains unshaken. "I expect to do most of my damage between 35 and 45," says he. Perhaps more important, the losses have shown that he can handle his setbacks with style, and though it kills him to lose, he asserts, "You do more good * for yourself by losing than by winning." Norman is also something of a throwback. Golf has become the province of colorless, interchangeable technicians content...
...adrenal urges. He encouraged Norman to hit the ball as far as he could, arguing that once you had length you could work on control. Norman now averages 280 yds. a drive; 260 yds. is considered good for a top pro. A few years back, during a pro-celebrity tournament at Gleneagles in Scotland, a wind-aided Norman drive measured 483 yds. Under Earp's tutelage Norman began cleaning up in amateur tournaments, and at 19 he took a $28-a-week job as assistant pro at the Royal Queensland Golf Club. There, playing for large sums with local high...