GOLF / PGA GRAND SLAM : Norman’s Victory Isn’t Pretty, but It Makes for a Rich Payday

Welcome to the Greg Norman World Golf Tour. On Sunday, he won $252,000 in Gotemba, Japan. On Monday, he fulfilled a commitment to play at Pebble Beach. On Tuesday, he played 27 holes in the PGA Grand Slam and on Wednesday, he played nine more, won it and banked another $400,000.

Next week’s course? He plays in a bank vault.

Yes, it has been a busy week, as full as Norman’s wallet, and we’ve had only a few days of it.

Minutes after two-putting from 30 feet on No. 18 to beat Paul Azinger by two strokes, Norman left the Nicklaus Resort Course at PGA West and hopped a flight to Thousand Oaks for his next event, the Franklin Funds Shark Shootout, where he can scoop up more cash and stuff it into his golf bag.

From Japan to Northern California to the desert to Thousand Oaks--it’s a busy schedule, all right, but certainly a worthwhile one. After all, it’s not every four days that you make $652,000.

If the money counted as official earnings, Norman’s four-day total would put him at No. 20 on the money list for the whole year.

As soon as Lee Janzen knocked a fairway bunker shot into the water on the last hole to take himself out of the running, Norman counted his good fortune. He used an adding machine.

“It’s not playing for a tournament, you’re playing for money,” Norman said. “I was thinking about that. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

Norman, the British Open champion, toured the last nine holes with eight pars and a bogey, completing a second-round 74 for a 36-hole total of 145, one over par.

None of the players, winners of the year’s four major tournaments, were able to shoot par for the 36 holes. Azinger, the PGA champion, closed with a 72 and won $250,000, leapfrogging Janzen when the U.S. Open champion scored a double-bogey on No. 18.

Janzen and Bernhard Langer, the Masters champion, tied for third and earned $175,000 apiece.

All in all, it was hardly the kind of golf befitting the winners of the four majors. In 36 holes, there were 11 balls hit into the water, two hit out of bounds and a total of 18 penalty strokes.

Norman wasn’t exactly crushed by the experience.

“Sometimes you win pretty, sometimes you win ugly,” he said. “In fishing terms, this was a mackerel in the moonlight--shining one minute, smelly the next.”

Janzen could have sculled a fish when he hit a four-iron from a fairway bunker on No. 18, about 182 yards from the hole, and sent the ball plopping into the water.

“I knew what to do to make a good shot,” Janzen said, “Obviously, I just didn’t do it.”

That was a $75,000 mistake, the difference between cashing the second-place check and tying for third.

Langer had a chance, but failed to make up ground when he missed an eight-foot birdie putt on No. 14 and bogeyed No. 15.

Azinger’s round featured two bogeys, two birdies and a series of missed putts, but somehow he managed to find some consolation in winning $250,000 for shooting 75-72.

Azinger said the money sort of took the sting out of the way he played.

“That was the big draw, I think, the big drawing card,” he said.

A year ago, Nick Price won the event by shooting 137. Nick Faldo, who finished fourth a year ago at 143, would have won by two shots this year.

It’s a good thing that Norman is more interested in accounting than history.

He closed out the biggest payday of his career by knocking a five-iron out of the same bunker on No. 18 that Janzen was in and sending it onto the green, about 30 feet past the hole.

Two putts later, the ball was in the hole and Norman was smiling again.

“We got the job done,” he said.

As victories go, it was one he richly deserved.