Is Greg golf's greatest loser?

GOLF/British Open countdown: David Davies rounds up the evidence to argue Greg Norman was more choker than champion.

It would be easy to say that for almost all of his career Greg Norman was that most pitiable of professional sportsmen, a choker. It would be an easy thing to prove, too, but for the fact that on two occasions in his life, when the pressure was at its most intense, the Australian rose up and demolished both the golf course and all his opponents on it.

The first of those occasions was at Turnberry when he won his first major, the 1986 British Open, and the second was at Royal St George's when, in 1993, he destroyed the strongest field any major championship had put together.

Furthermore, on that final day here the leaderboard was littered with the names of the world's finest players all playing their best. Of the top 11, 10 were - or would become - major champions, and the leaders were Corey Pavin and Nick Faldo.

The Englishman, who began the final round one ahead of Norman, got round in a superb 67, but lost by two shots. Norman was invincible, and while it is true that the perfect round of golf never has been - and probably never will be - played, it is also true that on that day Norman came close.

In fact, he used the word "perfect" liberally afterwards, saying: "I never mishit a shot. I hit every drive perfect; I hit every iron perfect. I'm in awe of just how perfectly I hit the ball today. I was playing a game of chess, to put the ball in the perfect place on the fairway so I could get it to the perfect place on the green."

There was only one slight imperfection in that round, but it didn't really matter because the championship was as good as won. Having hit a drive and three-iron into the breeze at the 428-yard 17th, the Australian hit his 25-footer to under two feet, and then missed the par putt. He stood still for ages, unable to believe the evidence of his eyes, before moving slowly to the 18th tee.

He could still bogey the hole and win, but in fact he hit another perfect drive, followed by a perfect four-iron.

This week he returns to the scene of that extraordinary triumph hoping to rekindle perfection.

The late Gene Sarazen, then 91, was a special invitee to that 1993 championship on the basis that he had won the British Open at Princes, the course over the boundary fence at the 14th, in 1932.

But the normally voluble Sarazen, invited to say a few words, could not on this occasion find them. Shaking his head and standing silently with the microphone for a few moments, he finally came up with a simple tribute: "I have never seen such shots. This must have been the greatest championship ever played."

It was won by Norman and the foregoing is evidence for the defence in the matter of him being a choker. There is, though, ample evidence for the prosecution. Norman once said, after being beaten in yet another major: "I'm not a loser, I'm a winner. I could be anything I want to be if I applied myself. If I wanted to be a brain surgeon I could be."

That was said in all seriousness, and as an example of positive thinking it could hardly be beaten. But it also shows a man in denial, a man who has not admitted - probably because he dare not - to himself the truth of the matter, which is that he has thrown away countless chances to win major championships. In over 80 attempts he has won only twice, and it is an unpalatable fact that his record places him firmly among the also-rans in championship golf.

No fewer than 38 players have won three or more majors; 33 more have the same number as Norman and, most damning of all, 25 players have won the same number of majors in one year as he has so far in his career.

And there is more. Norman has lost a play-off for all four majors, only once unluckily when Larry Mize fluked a 140-foot chip in the 1987 Masters. But when Bob Tway holed a bunker shot at the last to win the 1986 US PGA, Norman, after rounds of 65, 68 and 69 was about to return a 76.

In the 1984 US Open, he threw away a two-shot lead over the final three holes and then lost a play-off to Fuzzy Zoeller by eight strokes (67 to 75), and in the 1989 British Open at Royal Troon he completely lost the plot in a four-hole play off with the winner, Mark Calcavecchia, and Wayne Grady when he drove into a fairway bunker, duffed his second into another bunker and smashed his next out of bounds.

But all that was before his magnificence in 1993, and after his win the world's press set about declaring that he had at last taken the mighty bound to freedom; that the monkey was finally off his back and that more majors would follow.

In fact, the worst was yet to come. In 1996, Norman established a six-stroke lead over Faldo after three rounds of the Masters. But once again he fell apart and in the end finished five strokes behind Faldo.

Why? The question is unanswerable, even by Norman.

"All those times I didn't win," he says, "I went away to try and figure out what went wrong.

"Was it something mechanical? Was it mental? Was it in your heart? Or was it just destiny? You need to be able to learn from it and turn a negative into a positive. By losing I became a winner."

Winner or loser? The man may have no doubts, but when it comes to judging a golfer by the standards of our times - by the winning of major championships - the evidence points in only one direction. Greg Norman is the greatest loser championship golf has known.