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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Norman Finally Gets Losing Right

Jim Litke Associated Press

Fred Couples was the first to call him. That was the tipoff right there.

Couples hates talking on the phone so much he once said he wouldn’t answer a ringing phone because someone was bound to be on the other end.

But without prompting, he picked up the receiver last Sunday evening in Augusta, Ga., and dialed a house across town.

The man who was renting it for Masters week had arrived only 10 minutes earlier. He was distractedly packing for what would be a long, gloomy flight home, even though he owned the plane.

“Fred just wanted to tell me how sad he was for me,” Greg Norman recalled, “how he was bleeding for me.”

That was the first of thousands of such messages.

Though Norman isn’t as popular among his peers as among golf’s paying customers, some sympathy had to come his way. After the calamitous, compelling way the Masters ended, it had to.

Few people who saw Norman unravel could fail to relate. Even fewer who heard him answer question after question afterward - until the lines of his forehead were pulled as taut as his patience - could say worse things about him than he said about himself. Even so, the outpouring of support caught Norman by surprise.

Tears everywhere. Faxes from Japan. Notes taped to his locker when he arrived at the MCI Heritage Classic in Hilton Head Island, S.C., earlier this week. It has been so sustained, and it has reached him from so many far-flung corners that Norman, encouraged by his wife, Laura, has started rethinking what last week meant.

What once looked and felt like the most vexing and spectacular loss in a career chock-full of them has taken on a new dimension. From the wreckage of a truly spectacular collapse, Norman has retrieved a sense of accomplishment.

“Laura said to me, ‘You know, maybe this is better than winning the green jacket.’ She said, ‘Maybe now you understand the importance of it all.’ I never thought that I could reach out and touch people like that,” Norman said. “It’s extraordinary how I reached out and touched people by losing. It’s an extraordinary feeling.”

Since their heroes commit fewer and less grievous public sins, golf fans are generally the most forgiving and least judgmental in sports. But don’t dismiss this Norman response as a case of the audience bypassing its brain and responding only with its heart. No, this is something that comes from the gut. Here’s why:

It’s one thing when nice-guy rivals like Couples call. Or when a quick-to-tears guy like Ben Crenshaw walks out of the TV booth for a cigarette and a sniffle because he can’t carry on with the commentary.

But most times, it’s something altogether different when the cold-eyed and hard-hearted members of your circle weigh in. And in sharp contrast to the jealousy and scorn Norman sometimes inspires, this time the messages expressed only respect.

Jack Nicklaus, whose accomplishments include the most majors and the most second-place finishes in majors, said as much. So did Ray Floyd and Paul Azinger, whom Norman once challenged to a fight. Even Nick Faldo, who wore the green jacket Norman only got to try on, was more bloodless than usual. He treated winning with such restraint it left intact the dignity of the man who had just finished runner-up in a major - for the eighth time.

What made even the toughest of Norman’s fellow pros shudder and then reach out is that same bit of his character that will be celebrated time and again in shouts from the galleries this weekend.

For lack of another word, call it grace.

Until the Masters, it was a quality that hadn’t been observed around Norman in some time. He made excuses when he lost. He was arrogant. He was not beyond flaunting his wealth. Sometimes, in off-the-record asides, he unfairly trashed reputations.

Grace is a funny thing that way. Give it up once and usually it’s gone forever. Now that Norman has recovered it, he’d do well to keep it close by. After the Masters, he said he was certain that all these trials have been a test for something, though he didn’t know what. The suspicion is that he was being tested, all right, by losing over and over until he got it right.

That part of the lesson is over. Now we will find out if Norman is ready to start winning the big ones.