Sunday Morning at the British, all thoughts on if the Shark can do it

Sunday, July 20, 2008 9:07 am (Eastern)

By Sal Johnson

What a day it will be in golf history if Norman can win today, all the eyes of golf on Birkdale today.

The reality of what Greg Norman is doing has hit home here at Birkdale. After a night's sleep to think about it, the consensus in the media tent is that today could be one of the biggest days in golf. It's really funny on how just a week ago everyone was wondering how boring the British Open or any tournament was going to be about Tiger Woods, but in the last 16 hours or so everyone has forgotten about Tiger.

Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images The 18th green is prepared by R&A officials prior to the final round of the British Open

That's because the story of Greg Norman, who basically was the Tiger of golf 15 years ago could make everyone forget about Tiger. If Norman can win, it would be one of the top-five stories in golf history, ranked up there with Tiger's Torrey win, Francis Ouimet winning in 1913, Ben Hogan winning in 1950 and of course Jack Nicklaus comeback in the 1986 Masters. Not only would Norman at 53 be the oldest major championship winner, he would become the oldest winner on both the PGA Tour (passing Sam Snead's 1965 Greensboro record at 52 years old) and surpass Des Smyth European tour record (Smyth was 48 years old when he won the 2001 Madeira Island Open).

In looking at everything that could be accomplished today the most important thing that Norman will do is erase the last real memory we have of him, losing a big lead to Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters. Yes Norman won two more times in his career in 1997 but the most vivid memory for most of us is that awkward scene with Faldo on the final green at Augusta. For Norman, visits to Augusta had to be disheartening and as one Masters winner once told me whenever he saw Norman pass the door of the champions locker room, it was always a strain never being able to come up with the right words at such a uncomfortable time.

Golf will always remember the Woods and the Nicklaus's, Palmer's, Watson's, Hogan's, Snead's, Nelson's Jones, Hagen's, Vardon and even Gary Player but because of all the times that Norman lost he isn't considered one of the top players of all time in the same circle of those other greats. But if he was able to win today, it would be about as big of a victory as if someone got away with robbing American's gold reserve in Fort Knox and he would go down and be mention in the list of great champions.

Can Norman do it? Yes, but it's not going to be easy. One thing that is frighting is how bad he is driving the ball. Yesterday he only hit 3 of 14 fairways and for the week and only five others are driving the ball worst than Norman. He also has had a lot of pressure on him, being high up the leaderboard since he played Thursday morning. That pressure along with the wind which is blowing 25 miles per hour will make it tough. Yes the sun is out and it's a crisp day, matter of fact it feels like a fall day in the northeast United States. But my memory of these kind of days was always being greated by the legendary late announcer Jim McKay who would dub this day, Championship Sunday.

As of 1pm English time, nobody is making a run on Norman but we will see if a Sergio Garcia or a Anthony Kim will make that big run to add to the Shark's pressure.

It will also be interesting to see how many people will be watching this week, not only in ABC's ratings but interest over here in England.

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