BRITISH OPEN : Ghosts Disappear, Norman Returns to His Former Self : Golf: Australian who almost quit the game in 1991 comes full circle with another title in Britain. He finishes with lowest total in history of tournament.

By CHRIS DUFRESNE

July 19, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANDWICH, England —

It began as a game of Where’s Faldo? but soon turned into a shark hunt, except this time no one was going to catch Greg Norman.

Not with a net. Not with a club.

As the ghosts of tournaments past stalked him down the hollows, as iron man Nick Faldo pursued from one hole back, as the grip got tighter and the throat drier, Norman drove his head into the Sunday wind and cut a triumphant swath on his way to winning the 122nd British Open title at Royal St. George’s.

Norman’s round of 64 was as near to a perfect game as can be played in major competition.

Bernhard Langer, Norman’s playing partner, called him “invincible.”

Langer began the day tied with Norman and attempted desperately to keep pace, but after he hit his tee shot out of bounds at 14, leading to a double bogey, Langer knew all was lost.

Norman was so stone-cold focused he didn’t even see Langer’s bad shot.

Norman claimed he did not glance to the leader board until the 17th hole.

“I knew I was ahead because there were not a lot of roars behind me,” Norman said.

Faldo, the Englishman, spun his wheels in pursuit, but there were too few cheers in the end.

Norman, the Australian, had caught Faldo with a birdie on the first hole and took the lead for good when Faldo bogeyed the fourth.

The middle rounds were nip-and-tuck, but Norman moved to three shots ahead on the par-three, 16th after he plopped a five-iron shot four inches from the cup and tapped in for birdie.

“Today, I did not mishit a shot,” Norman would say later. “I hit every shot perfect, every iron perfect. I’m not a guy to brag about myself, but I was just in awe of myself.”

He wasn’t the only one.

Norman made one mistake, on the 17th green, when he missed a 14-inch putt that hit the back of the cup and bounced out. Norman had to swallow a bogey.

When the news hit the leader board, that Faldo had moved to within two, the partisans whooped it up.

They were all schooled on Norman’s tournament rap sheet, on his curse of back luck. On how Bob Tway holed out from a bunker on 18 to beat Norman at the 1986 PGA Championship.

On how Larry Mize had stolen the 1987 Masters with a seemingly impossible 140-foot chip shot to victory.

As much as they remember Norman’s lone British Open victory in 1986--his only major title--they remembered that Robert Gamez had holed a seven-iron to beat him at the Nestle in 1990, and that David Frost chipped out of a bunker against him at the New Orleans the same year.

There was the 1989 British Open, too, when he lost a three-way playoff at Royal Troon.

That was the Greg Norman fans at Royal St. George’s hoped would tip-toe down the 18th fairway with their man, Faldo, waiting to pounce.

The Norman who nearly wilted after losing four hotly-contested majors, three in playoffs.

Three cheers for a relapse. Bring on 1991 when, after another humiliating performance at a tournament in Houston, the man called “Shark” lost his bite for the game and almost quit.

“Is it worth it?” Norman said to himself.

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Do you want give up or be the best you can be? When you look in the mirror, eye-to-eye, you can never lie to yourself,’ ” Norman said.

The mirror told Norman to bite back. So began the arduous journey back, which required Norman at age 38 to “work harder than when I was 21.”

He pulled out of a PGA tournament in 1992 and another this season. After missing the cut at the U.S. Open this year, Norman got off the mat again and set up his next comeback at the British Open.

Sunday, after 71 holes at Royal St. George’s, he was perched on tee at 18, one of the course’s toughest par fours.

Only par would make him feel safe.

Faldo was behind him, the crowd was largely against him, but Norman whacked the shot to the middle of the fairway.

His second shot, a four-iron, landed 18 feet from the pin.

As Norman took his victory walk down the 18th fairway Langer, the Masters’ champion, strode up beside.

“That’s the greatest golf I’ve seen in my life,” he told Norman.

Faldo was defeated. He needed a birdie on 17 but left with a par.

From the 18th tee he saw Norman’s second shot and conceded the match.

“I had kept going until there,” Faldo said. “The odds of a two (to tie Norman) are really slim.”

After Norman putted out, he raised both hands in the air, then hugged his teacher, Butch Harmon. Then he wrapped both arms around his wife, Laura.

The Shark, who needed to keep swimming to stay alive, had seen his career come full circle.

His game had known more humps and hollows than the fairways at Royal St. George’s.

He had withstood the criticism and, at last, lived up to everyone else’s expectations.

“I’m not out here to prove other people wrong,” Norman said. “I’m out to prove myself right.”

But a few ghosts were exorcised.

“The disappointments are always going to be there,” Norman said. “It’s history. I’d like to say, ‘Yeah, I beat Larry Mize, and I beat Bob Tway, but I didn’t. But I came back. I came back with gusto.”

Faldo, on his 36th birthday, could not defend his Open title. But he took it graciously and even joined in when the gallery at the 18th green sang “Happy Birthday” before the trophy presentation.

Langer finished third at 270. Corey Pavin took a share of the lead into Sunday’s play, but his round of 70 was no match for Norman’s 64.

Pavin finished in a tie for fourth with Australian Peter Senior at 272.

Norman told everyone all week that Faldo was not unbeatable. “Nick is the most tenacious golfer on this planet right now,” Norman said. “Everybody said Nick was the man to beat. He was. If I hadn’t beat him, he would have won.”

FINAL LEADERS

Player: Score

Greg Norman: 66-68-69-64--267

Nick Faldo: 69-63-70-67--269

Bernhard Langer: 67-66-70-67--270

Peter Senior: 66-69-70-67--272

Corey Pavin: 68-66-68-70--272

Nick Price: 68-70-67-69--274

Paul Lawrie: 72-68-69-65--274

Ernie Els: 68-69-69-68--274

Fred Couples: 68-66-72-69--275

Wayne Grady: 74-68-64-69--275