Greg Norman tames British Open winds, leads by two

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?

“I’ve got a funny feeling he can,” Faldo said.

Faldo credited old age, reckoning that, “As you get older, you don’t try to do too much too clever.” Faldo said, “While everyone else is grinding and spitting out fescue grass, he’s just cruising.” And Faldo said, “How come he still has the same putting stroke at 53? Where’s the fairness in life?”

Possibly winning the world’s greatest tournament “in ‘86, ‘93 and then 2008?’” Faldo said, and he laughed. “So it’s, uh, phenomenal.”

Winning in middle age as Jack Nicklaus did at 46 in the 1986 Masters at Norman’s expense, eclipsing Julius Boros at 48 in the 1968 PGA as oldest major champion? “Well, I’m not going to get ahead of myself,” Norman said. “Ask me that question tomorrow night if it happens, OK?”

After all, he’d just come through a whole day of wreckage and rubble.

Everywhere the wizened British golf fans looked, disasters sprang. The wind tore into faces, moved golf balls from their lies and ripped caps off heads. Nobody broke even-par 70, further polishing Norman’s 72.

Curtis’ 70 seemed downright leviathan. The impossibly young Kim’s 71 with an eagle on No. 17 seemed an act of genius, especially since he sat around waiting more than half an hour for a ruling at No. 10 because the wind had just moved his ball on the green three separate times.

When the rules official came over, Kim said, “The wind was blowing so much, he couldn’t really hear in his ear piece.”

Third-round leader Choi demonstrated his immense talent and will by holding onto a slippery 75 after the nasty front nine antagonized him. Jim Furyk, the morning-line favorite to win, played the back nine in 7-over and wound up 9-over. Phil Mickelson, hopeful after he went from 79 on Thursday to 68 on Friday, went back to 76. On a day when Norman said 18-inch putts grew hairy in the wind, the 2007 Sunday morning leader Sergio Garcia missed his third sub-two-foot horror within two days on No. 2 to foretell a 74 that left him seven shots behind.

And for horrific turns, nobody could match the 2001 champion David Duval, so heady in surfacing from drought with two solid early rounds. In a scorecard that indeed could cause bad dreams, Duval played the first eight holes with triple-bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, par, double-bogey, bogey and bogey.

“It’s as hard as I have ever played in,” he said.

With carnage all around, out for the last pairing with Choi walked a wise old geezer with both Australian and American flags on his bag. “I mean, I’ll be honest, I walked to the first tee nervous today,” Norman said. “It was a good indicator for me that I was as nervous as I felt. I hadn’t felt that way probably, you know, for 10 years maybe, maybe even longer, when I walked to the first tee. So I was excited about being there. I wanted to be there.”

Even with a stockpiled memory bank that includes the wretched Turnberry in 1986, Norman still found this “in the top three hardest rounds I’ve ever played under the circumstances,” and found it “incredible to watch, actually, to see the golf ball react like it was reacting.”

Yet with his contentment in life and his wherewithal on links, Norman overcame three bogeys in the first six holes – itself not so bad given the day – to wring three birdies to one bogey out of the last 12. He cuddled up to peculiar shots like the 5-iron he had to hit from 120 yards and the 7-iron from 104.

“Very imaginative, more imaginative than me,” Choi said.

Flashing his old knack for reading greens, he almost eagled No. 16, and when he tapped in for birdie, he had a stunningly retro two-shot lead and the chance to haul golf into another Norman Sunday with the towering old question of whether he’d lead everyone into anguish or exhilaration at an inconceivable 53.

“I can’t answer that question now,” Norman said, even as Faldo said, “Maybe there’s something about this.”