Greg Norman tames British Open winds, leads by two
BRITISH OPEN
The 53-year-old former champion holds small edge over defending champion Padraig Harrington and K.J. Choi heading into the final round.
SOUTHPORT, England -- Like one of those deep, strange, REM dreams where familiar faces turn up in unfeasible places, Greg Norman leads the British Open after three rounds.
That's the 137th British Open in the year 2008, and that's the Greg Norman who's allegedly 53, who didn't play the previous 11 majors or the last two British Opens, who has dabbled in five tournaments and 15 competitive rounds all year, who's 12 years removed from his last major-Sunday lead, 15 years removed from his last major title and who came here to practice -- practice! -- for two upcoming senior events.
"The players are probably saying, 'My god! What's he doing up there? Sheesh!' " Norman said.
In this surrealism in the dunes on the Irish Sea, however, the scoreboard does verify that Norman has shot 70 and 70 and then a sterling 72 today in malevolent winds at Royal Birkdale that gusted 40 mph and caused one of the toughest three rounds of his elongated career.
Somehow, against all reason, the big yellow scoreboard above No. 18 shows that Norman leads by two shots over major-champion-in-waiting K.J. Choi and defending champion Padraig Harrington, by three over the semi-anonymous Englishman Simon Wakefield, and by five over four players who include 2003 champion Ben Curtis and the 23-year-old sensation and native Angeleno Anthony Kim.
If cold and laughing scoreboard numbers weren't enough time warp, consider the scene that closed this savage day on the west coast of England.
All these years later, Norman walked up a No. 18 fairway to emphatic cheers as a Saturday leader as he had so many times in his heyday, including all four majors in 1986. Golf would go into a Sunday with Norman in the lead, an idea that once caused queasiness given his legacy of Sunday catastrophe both fate-inflicted and self-inflicted.
And there, just behind the ropes off to the right, looking dashing in a brown corduroy jacket over a gray wool sweater, stood commentator and Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo, the same person who trailed Norman by six shots on Sunday morning at the 1996 Masters but shot a ruthless 67 alongside Norman's collapsing 78.
A mere pup at age 51, Faldo watched as Norman delighted the crowd with a luminous chip that almost fell in the hole before stopping one foot by. As 1980s flashbacks criss-crossed Faldo and Norman's new wife, Chris Evert, kissed on both cheeks and had a chat.
Can Greg Norman refrain from brutal revival, keep his head and win?
