Norman’s Wedge Shots Keep Him in the Chips With 4-Shot PGA Lead

Greg Norman answered adversity with a magic wedge Saturday, twice chipping in from off the green to retain a four-shot lead and authoritative control of the 68th PGA National Championship.

“Greg is playing so well. He’s reached a level where his expectations are so high. . . . He can be intimidating, frightening,” said Peter Jacobsen, who is one of only two players within six shots of the runaway leader going into today’s final round in the last of the year’s four major golfing tests.

Jack Nicklaus, who beat Norman by a stroke at the Masters but has virtually putted himself out of much chance to win here, said: “It will be very difficult to beat him. It’s all up to Greg. If he plays well, he wins.”

Bob Tway, the only man to make up ground--and it took a course-record 64 Saturday for him to do it--took a more optimistic view.

“You never know--Greg might shoot 65, or he might shoot 72,” Tway said. “You never know. I’ll just try to play good golf, give myself all the opportunities I can and hope to be in contention.”

No one actually got into contention in the third round.

Norman, who has led this tournament since a 65 in the opening round, had leads ranging from three to six shots. He really wasn’t threatened. And when he found himself in a rare spot of trouble, he simply chipped the ball into the hole.

He finished with a two-under-par 69 for a 202 total, 11 shots under par on the Inverness course that did not yield a subpar 72-hole total in four U.S. Opens.

Norman, with his performance this year, is now the first man to lead going into the final round of all four of golf’s major championships. He led the Masters by one stroke and finished second, one back of Nicklaus. He led the U.S. Open by one, “came out flat” by his own admission and drifted back into the field. He led the British Open by one and won by five.

Now, with 18 holes to go in the last of the year’s Big Four tournaments, only Tway and Jacobsen are within sight of the Australian known as The Great White Shark.

Tway, winner of three titles on the PGA Tour this year and second only to Norman on the money-winning list, got there on an eight-birdie effort that put him alone in second at 206.

“I got myself back in the golf tournament,” he said.

Jacobsen was next at 208 after a hard-won 70.

The other contenders, including Nicklaus, fired and fell back on the course that is rapidly drying from midweek rains and is becoming very fast and firm.

Payne Stewart, four back when the day’s play started, slipped to a 72 and was tied at 209 with Donnie Hammond. Hammond, not yet a winner in four years of tour activity, came from well back with a 68.

Nicklaus, 46, holder of a record 18 major professional titles, was in position to shoot in the 60s but received no cooperation from his over-sized putter and finished with a 72.

That left him at 210, eight shots back in his quest for a record sixth PGA championship. He is tied with Bruce Lietzke, who had a 70.

No one else was within realistic striking distance of Norman, the dashing Australian who has dominated world golf this year.

Tom Watson, needing this title to become only the fifth man to make a career sweep of the game’s majors, could do no better than a 72 that left him at par 213.

Norman, who led by two shots after 18 holes and by four going into the third round, didn’t make a bogey Saturday, but that was due mainly to a magic wedge.

On the fourth, he was in a wiry tangle of rough around the green, looking at a bogey. But he made a birdie, chipping in from about 25 feet.

On the 13th, he was looking at a double bogey but made a minor-miracle par, the kind of par with which championships are won.

Norman drove to the right and into the rough on the edge of a bunker, a position that forced him to take an awkward stance for his second shot. He lashed it across the fairway into a nearly impossible position under a small tree.

He couldn’t get at it right-handed, so he played his third shot left-handed. He moved it only a few feet, leaving his fourth shot short and on a slope leading up to the green on the par-5 hole.

At that point, the loss of his lead was a possibility, and a double bogey was a probability.

However, Norman chipped in the shot from about 60 feet away for a par.

It marked the third time in a 16-hole stretch that he had holed out from off the green. He also chipped in on the 15th hole during Friday’s second round.

Norman added a 20-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole to finish the day as he had started it--with a four-shot lead.