Greg Norman shipped a six-shot 54-hole lead as Nick Faldo won his third green jacket with a glorious final-day 67. 9.26pm BST
And look, let’s cut Greg some slack, shall we. It’s no time for a pile-on. If that 70-footer on 14 had dropped ... if that chip for eagle on 15 went in ... yeah, yeah, your auntie and uncle. But we’re talking the combined width of a couple of dimples here; it wouldn’t have taken too much to shift the momentum. Sure, you can’t deny the scale and scope of the collapse ... but things are never totally black and white, and it’d be dreadful if history forgets how Norman nearly pulled it back round when his dreams were crumbling. Just as it’d be an outrage if Faldo’s 67 doesn’t go down as one of the great final rounds in the entire history of championship
golf, one of the carpe-diem performances. Faldo’s been pretty good at those over the years, you know.
-12: Nick Faldo -7: Greg Norman -6: Phil Mickelson -5: Frank Nobilo -4: Scott Hoch, Duffy Waldorf -3: Davis Love III, Jeff Maggert, Corey Pavin -2: David Frost, Scott McCarron 9.20pm BST
But take nothing away from Nick Faldo, who now joins Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead and Gary Player as a three-time Masters champion. That’s some exalted company; only Arnold Palmer (four) and Jack Nicklaus (six) have won more. Throw in his three Opens, and that’s a total of six majors, putting him up there on the all-time list alongside Lee Trevino, and ahead of the likes of Byron Nelson, Peter Thomson and Seve! Faldo never seems to get the credit he deserves for his brilliance, his talent, his street-fighting moxie. And no doubt today’s 67 will become another example of that trend, eclipsed by the Norman psychodrama. But what a final round! Six birdies today, and a serene swing around Amen Corner, not a single bat of the eyelid as he traversed the most notoriously mind-bending stretch in major-championship golf. What a golfer! What a champion! England’s greatest sporting star of all time? He’s got a claim.