Black Sunday (revisited)

April 14, 1996. Greg Norman seemed set to win a green jacket--until the curtain went up on the theater of the absurd

Norman's reaction after his tee shot at No. 4 found the sand typified the fateful day. AP Photo

By John Hawkins and Tim Rosaforte

March 31, 2006

Ten years later, the memories are as clear as the day from which they came. Black Sunday dawned to a spooky, robust fog, but by mid-morning the vapor had vanished in Georgia's warm spring air. Temperatures would climb well into the 80s that afternoon. There would be little breeze and barely a cloud in the sky -- one can see why the golf gods wanted an unobstructed view of the final round of the 1996 Masters.

Greg Norman has always been an early riser, awake by sunrise most mornings. Although his 2:49 p.m. tee time with Nick Faldo could make the hours feel like months, Norman had led enough major championships after 54 holes to know the drill. "I had a great night's sleep," he recalls. "I remember getting up and turning on the Weather Channel, mainly to see which direction the wind would be coming from. I check the forecast and play the golf course in my head with whatever wind they're calling for."

To pass some time, Norman and his wife, Laura, took a walk around the suburban Augusta neighborhood they called home for the week. Their stroll did not include any conversation about Greg's six-stroke lead over Faldo, much less the promise of something very special happening later that day. After years of center-stage heartbreak and self-inflicted failures at golf's biggest events, anything relevant to Norman's dagger-infested past was probably better left unsaid.

No more than a few miles away, Faldo puttered around his rented house in a state of uncharacteristic tranquility. He was six back, after all, alone in second place but not exactly breathing down the leader's neck. Paired together in the final group Saturday, Norman had widened his lead by shooting a 71 to Faldo's 73. Of course, this meant little now. Nobody in the game's modern era plucked opportunity from the mistakes of others quite like the Big Brit, whose five major titles included back-to-back Masters triumphs (1989-90) that were someone else's to lose.

Lose them they had. "It's what pro sport is all about, isn't it?" Faldo says. "If Scott Hoch could have holed that putt, that was the first one, then Ray Floyd could have done this [in '90]. My argument, and everybody knows this, is that it has always been a 72-hole race. We all know where the starting line is. We all know where the finish tape is. That's what it's all about."

Three-quarters to the finish tape that Sunday morning in '96, Faldo watched a NASCAR race on TV and plotted the unthinkable. He had played the hand he had been dealt in his news conference Saturday night, stating the obvious amidst glimmers of hope while acknowledging that, yes, six strokes was a bit of a climb. Still, he(could catch Norman. Why not? "Of course you're going to say that to the press," says Faldo, who will turn 50 next year. "You can't go in and say, 'I've got no frickin' chance.' So I get home and I'm telling myself, 'Yes, I can do this!' I'm planning it all the way, thinking that if I can get it down to three after nine holes, we've seen plenty of guys blow three-shot leads on the back nine at Augusta National."

Just 6� months earlier, Faldo had emerged as a hero at the 1995 Ryder Cup, clinching a key point in his singles match against Curtis Strange as Europe rallied to beat the United States. Again, the formula was a familiar one: Strange faltered badly down the stretch, and there was St. Nick with the pressure at a premium, primed to pounce. After laying up with his second shot at the difficult 18th, Faldo knocked a full wedge to four feet and saved par to win, 1 up.

All seemed fine as Norman warmed up Sunday with Harmon (right) and Navarro. Photo: Stephen Szurlej

The fall of '95 also marked the end of Faldo's second marriage. His wife, Gill, with whom he had three children, accompanied him to the matches at Oak Hill primarily to avoid the scrutiny that would have ensued if she hadn't made the trip. It was no secret that Faldo would be leaving his wife within a matter of weeks, but there was Gill, reveling in the champagne spray after Europe's stunning victory.

Their separation was announced shortly after the Ryder Cup. "Socially, a 24-handicapper," Gill would say of her ex-husband, although Faldo had already begun a relationship with 20-year-old Brenna Cepelak, a member of the University of Arizona women's golf team who was with him in Augusta. Whether it was the presence of his new companion, the huge final-round deficit or mere coincidence, a man legendary for his meticulous preparation strayed from his pre-round routine that Sunday.