You reach a certain age — 53, let's say — and you think you've got the rest of your life mapped out. You visit your wineries; you launch your new sportswear collections; you fly to various continents and archipelagos to see how your golf courses are coming along; and every now and then you tee it up in a golf tournament. Maybe, to ward off the blahs, you spend $103 million on a divorce settlement and marry the love of your life, a world-famous tennis star.
"It was a nice little lifestyle," Chris Evert conceded last Friday, her use of the past tense signaling that it might be threatened. "He was home a lot."
By he, Evert meant her husband of four weeks, Hall of Fame golfer Greg Norman. The two sports icons were walking together on the gentle dunescape of Royal Troon, a famous links course on Scotland's Ayrshire coast. And when I say together, I'm not ignoring the fact that they were separated by a blue nylon rope. Norman, though he was playing in the second round of the Senior British Open, made repeated trips through the well-trampled rough to give his bride a quick smooch and trade endearments. It was the boldest display of affection seen at Troon since Colin Montgomerie last played there as a single.
But life has a way of unsettling the settled. In the days following his astonishing third-place tie in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, Norman — a part-time golfer with a dodgy back — was suddenly back in the limelight. Headlines brayed Tiger Who? Television directors cued up the pulsating Jaws theme to play over their Norman highlights. The PGA of America went so far as to extend Norman a last-minute invitation to enter its championship, which begins on Aug. 7 in Michigan.
And there was this poke in the ribs from the fickle finger of fate: By finishing in the top four at Birkdale, Norman qualified to play in the 2009 Masters. (Anybody remember what happened to the Shark in the final round of the 1996 Masters? Hint: He appeared on the cover of SI next to the words Agony at Augusta.) Norman now had to make some big decisions about his playing future at, of all places, Troon, where he famously lost the '89 Open Championship to Mark Calcavecchia in a four-hole playoff. (Anybody remember how Norman played the final hole? Hint: After visiting two bunkers, the caddie master's leg and the gravel patio behind the 18th green, the ball wound up in Greg's pocket.)
Norman, it must be said, wasn't yanking pages out of his calendar. "I really haven't put a whole lot of thought into it yet," he said last Friday evening, when the pressure to announce his intentions was building. "I've got this week and next week" — the U.S. Senior Open in Colorado Springs, beginning on Thursday — "and, you know, a special exemption to the PGA is one of those things that makes you think a little bit. After that, I have to get together with my design guys, and I have trips to course sites around the world, scheduled things that I really can't change."
The PGA invite was the most pressing matter because Norman had only until Monday to accept or decline. [On Monday, Norman declined.] "It's his decision entirely, but I'll give my opinion," said Evert, whose advice carries the imprimatur of 18 Grand Slam singles titles. "What are your motives for playing? Do you play simply because you're flattered that you've been invited? Or do you play because you're feeling good about your golf and you really want to play?" She added, "If he wants to play, I want him to play. I just want him to be happy."
Norman is already happy — not to mention rich, handsome, slim, respected and loved — so you wonder why he'd want to reinvest in a game that has broken his heart so often. "There's a dilemma there, no question," said NBC golf reporter Gary Koch, who wore a competitor's badge at Troon and finished 13th. "Greg played at Royal Birkdale without a lot of expectations. Now, after one good week, the expectations change."
They do, indeed. Sam Torrance, the former European Ryder Cup captain, was asked early last week if Norman was favored to win the Senior British. "I should bloody hope so," Torrance said with a snort. "Leading the Open with nine to play? We all saw it. Looked like he turned the clock back 25 years, to be honest." Blinded with awe, Torrance failed to notice that Norman had played only three tournaments in three-plus years of Champions tour eligibility. He also didn't take into account that Australia's most famous golfer would be playing back-to-back tournaments for the first time in ages, or that back surgery has left him unable to practice for more than an hour or so at a time, or that he would be playing consecutive weeks of traditional links golf, even a few days of which can destroy minds as readily as it wrecks swings.
