Gone With The Wind

By successfully defending his Open title, Harrington vaulted from 14th to No. 3 on the World Ranking. Photo: Darren Carroll

Saturday evening Norman was asked if being in the hunt at majors was like riding a bike, something you never forget how to do. "Yeah, but sometimes that bike gets a little wobbly," he kidded. A TV camera moved in, a microphone slid under his chin, and just like that, the self-deprecating Shark and his two-stroke lead had returned to the Land of Public Consumption.

Norman also made sure everybody knew how little he had done to prepare for this tournament, much less four days in the hothouse of contention. Where did all the downplay get him? On the wrong end of another final-nine lapse. "Coming down the 18th, I told him I was sorry it wasn't his story that was going to be told," Harrington said, showing as much sincerity as a champion is allowed by British Open law.

That's the thing. It was Norman's story, maybe the same old story, but his all the same. Those who argue the choke theory wouldn't have to look hard to find their evidence. His closing 77 was five strokes higher than anyone who finished in the top five, two strokes more than anybody in the top 15. There were several questionable club selections, as Norman seemed to favor an aggressive philosophy off the tee and conservative plays into the greens.

He got some kind bounces to offset the nasty ones, most notably at the eighth, where Norman lashed a driver into the left dunes and found himself with an open look from a lie of matted grass. Three feet in any other direction and he would have had a serious problem. Two holes later, the beginning of the end, he again missed left with the driver. "A good break there," Norman said. "I couldn't see the flag, but I could have been a lot worse off."

We could argue all night and into tomorrow whether Norman succumbed to the pressure of another big-trophy Sunday. If Harrington hadn't performed so brilliantly, the cause of his demise would matter a lot more than it does now, but in threatening to become the oldest player (by five years) to claim a major title, the Great White Shock completely energized this tournament.

So what if he repackaged false hope, a familiar theme, to hog the storyline? A third-round 72 in steady winds of 35 miles per hour, with gusts of close to 50, was vintage Norman, a concoction of tenacity, patience and finesse that was all the buzz Saturday night. "Can he do this? I've got a funny feeling he can," marveled Nick Faldo, the beneficiary of Norman's darkest moment, the 1996 Masters. "There's something about this, [especially] with Tiger not here and [nobody] pointing the finger in one direction."

As the Woods Dynasty began to take shape in late 1996 and early 1997, Norman's career had begun its steep descent. He had been all but absent from the competitive stage since a valiant duel with José Maria Olazábal at the '99 Masters, another tough loss, so it was with no shortage of irony that the Shark returned to the radar in the first major Woods missed as a pro. "How come he's still got a putting stroke at age 53?" Faldo wondered. "Where's the fairness in life?"

Funny he should mention that. Sort of. "We all know where he was the last time he led a major after 54 holes," Faldo added in what sounded like an afterthought but could easily have been construed as a cruel, self-indulgent flashback. Either way, it was a remark from left field, a reference to that '96 Masters, as if the chief antagonist didn't believe in Norman's chances, after all.