IT'S Saturday evening in the spring of 1996 and Greg Norman, the eternal bridesmaid at Augusta, looks certain to walk down the aisle on Sunday afternoon. The Shark has played beautifully for three days, opening with a mesmerising 63 and building a six-shot lead over Nick Faldo after 54 holes. Time, at last, for the Australian to win a major title in America.
In the locker room, Peter Dobereiner, one of the media centre's most gifted scribes who has known Norman since he played regularly on the European Tour in the Seventies, wraps an arm around the golfer's shoulder. "Don't worry, Greg," he grins, "not e
ven you can **** this one up now."
The quip is kindly rather than caustic. Yes, Norman has a reputation for blowing tournaments he should win, but there's a sense of poetic justice about him coming good at a championship which has dealt him so many blows. After those cruel losses to Jack Nicklaus and Larry Mize, his coach, Butch Harmon, says Norman is finally at peace with Augusta.
And then the demons swarm all over him. For those of us covering the Masters for newspaper deadlines in the UK, the first edition story of the final round only includes a few holes of the leaders. Of course the expectation is Norman will win, but there are sufficient tell-tale signs over the opening stretch to suggest the unthinkable – he could beat himself again.
He pulls his first drive, finds a greenside bunker and makes bogey. On the short fourth hole he drops another shot from a trap. Pursued by the relentless Nick Faldo, who birdies the sixth and eighth holes, Norman is in big trouble. "You could see it in his face," recalls Rodger Davis, a contemporary who watched on TV. "I thought, I don't believe this."
Worse was to come. A trip to the water and double bogey on the 12th, a detour in the trees on the 13th and more water, another double on the 16th. It's like watching a condemned prisoner walk to the gallows. Norman eventually signs for 78 and even the victorious ice man from Welwyn Garden City, the normally unflappable Faldo, is so choked with emotion he embraces the vanquished runner-up.
There have been plenty of shocking climaxes to major championships – just think of Jean Van de Velde's collapse at Carnoustie or Doug Sanders' missed putt at St Andrews – but nothing as harrowing to watch as this.
It said a lot for Norman he gave an honourable account of himself at the post-tournament press conference and three years later he'd recovered sufficiently from the trauma to finish third behind Jose Maria Olazabal. Today, at 54, he's back for what could be a farewell appearance after earning an invitation thanks to his third place behind Padraig Harrington in the Open at Birkdale last summer.
While it may be too late to banish all those ghosts lurking in the dogwoods and the pines, Norman says his memories are even-keeled rather than selective.
"No, I think I share the balance of them, good and bad, and I think it's important that you do that," he said. "Some of the bad stuff was self-inflicted and some of it wasn't. Things that you can reflect back on and I actually talk about a lot; I know I talk about it with Chrissie (Evert, his wife, the former tennis champion] a lot because we like to kind of lament a lot of times over what we have done and what we haven't done. I probably talk more about the Masters than I do anything else when we have those conversations.
"It's interesting, because she went through 13 times getting beaten by Martina Navratilova. And I went 22 times without winning the Masters. So I think I'm a little bit ahead of her.
"No matter how great a player you are, in whatever sport, or respective field, you always go through negatives and positives. It's good to talk about the negatives, because you don't need to keep them inside you. People know that things did happen, and sometimes you play bad and sometimes you play great and somebody beats you. And that's golf.
"But at the same time, I've come away from here with a lot of good memories, too. It's nice when you walk on the first tee like I did yesterday, and we are on the driving range, and when I walked out there, it was a pretty special moment."
According to Norman's compatriot, Geoff Ogilvy, it shouldn't be forgotten that before Tiger Woods, the Shark was the sport's marquee player. "This is going to be a better tournament because he's here," insisted the Australian. "I mean, people forget, but he was the one everybody went to see before Tiger came along."
Ogilvy even thinks Norman can turn back the clock once more. "He could contend. He knows the course as well as Fred Couples and all of those other guys. He's going to hit it to the right spots. If he brings the physical part of it, it's quite feasible he could have a chance starting Sunday's round."
For Greg Norman and Augusta, there's another cliff-hanger of a chapter still to write.
