Norman’s Second To One, Again Overnight Co-Leader Settles For Runner-Up Spot For Sixth Time

He moves on to the next tournament, gathers what is left of his nerve and points toward the next major championship. Greg Norman has few options. Pride won’t let him quit. Exile won’t work. He can’t change his name.

There were no miracle shots this afternoon - by him or anyone else. Just another loss in another major. And so Norman still has an entire category in golf to himself: The best player of his era, but also the worst closer.

His 3-over-par round of 73 Sunday across treacherous, windswept Shinnecock Hills only reinforced that notion. It deposited him two strokes shy of Corey Pavin’s even-par 280 and the runner-up in a major for the sixth time.

“People simply will say I let things slip away,” Norman said. “That’s not necessarily the case. It’s just as hard to put yourself in there with a chance to win as it is to win.”

That may be so. But no one has lost more major championships in more torturous ways. Norman lost every one of the four in a playoff, the most improbable coming when Larry Mize ran in a 100-foot chip shot to steal the 1987 Masters. A fifth major dissolved before his eyes in equally spectacular fashion when Bob Tway holed out a bunker shot on the final hole of the 1986 PGA Championship.

Mostly, though, Norman has lost the biggest tournaments himself. Bad club selection, bad judgment, the occasional loose swing, a lack of resolve, a reluctance to accept responsibility for any of those shortcomings. There was the sense most of those flaws had been left behind when Norman shot a closing 64 at Royal St. George and beat back challenge after challenge from an illustrious leaderboard to win the British Open in 1993 for his second major championship.

Yet, almost all of those blemishes were in evidence at one time or another during this Open. Norman managed to hide some of them Saturday - when gusting winds and dryingout greens made Shinnecock play its most brutal - with a remarkable string of 10 oneputt pars. But he couldn’t do the same Sunday.

Norman bogeyed the second, but rolled through the next nine with pars. A poor chip at the 12th, followed by a pulled drive at the 13th brought back-to-back bogeys, the second a crushing one when one more par-saving putt died on the lip of the cup.

“That,” Norman said, “was where it became a little more difficult.”

And yet Norman arrived at No. 16, a par-5 of 544 yards into the wind, with one more shot at redemption. He still trailed Pavin by only a shot and after two of his own, he had 86 yards left to the flagstick and a wedge in his hands. For reasons known only to Norman, he put so much backspin on the ball that as soon as it hit the putting surface, it was sucked down a slope and far enough from the hole to kill any chance at a birdie.

Interesting enough, when someone asked Norman which shot he might like to have back, the one at the 16th never came up. Whatever other components of the mental game Norman may yet want to master, a selective memory is not among them. He already has that.

Still, Norman led or shared the lead heading into each of the final two rounds. Par in both would have won him the tournament by five shots. Instead, he gave seven strokes back to par. He offset eight bogeys with only one birdie over those same 36 holes.

“Did you give the tournament back?” he was asked.

“It’s easy to sit here and say that now, but we played a golf course that was very difficult,” he said. “… I think we can all say the golf course got the better of us. I don’t think that ‘giving it away’ is the right way to put it.”

But until Norman proves otherwise, there is no better way. Already this season, he has a third-place finish at the Masters to go with this second place and a chance to move up one more place at St. Andrews.

“Three … two … one,” Norman counted down. “That would be a pretty good way to go. I’ve played exceptionally good golf this year. I’ve given myself a chance to win two major championships, which is more than a lot of other guys can say.”

For a man with Norman’s talent, his ego and a bank account way out of proportion with his accomplishments, that’s still not enough.