Shark Bites from the Vault

TROON, SCOTLAND –- Greg Norman birdied five of the first seven holes this afternoon at the Senior British Open, reminding old-timers of his six-birdie start in the final round of the '89 Open Championship. It sent me running to the SI Vault for a long interview I conducted with the Shark in the autumn of 1991. Specifically, I wanted to take a second look at Norman's answers to questions about form, momentum, and the fabled "zone" of peak performance.

"The thing with golf," Norman told me at the time, "is it's like a cat chasing its tail. You're never going to catch it. The day you think you've got your swing down pat, something goes awry and you've got to go back to the driving range, back to square one. That's one reason why I love the game so much. It's the soul-searching and the never-ending search for the perfect swing. Nobody's ever going to achieve the perfect swing, but you get those moments where you can put a golf ball within a foot from 180 yards away. That's a very unique time."

"How would you describe that feeling," I asked.

"There's this inner calm you get. Nobody's going to break your concentration, and it's like you're flowing along -- you don't feel the ground. You pick up the golf club and it feels like you're milking it. The swing feels like it takes five seconds, when it really takes 1.2. That's what the game is all about, that feeling."

"How long can you sustain that feeling?"

"One shot, maybe. Yeah, 'cause the next shot is a different situation."

For more of my Q&A with Norman, take the stairs down to the Vault and tell the clerk that Garrity sent you.

British Writers Wowed by Wichita

TROON, SCOTLAND –- I’m suddenly the go-to guy for British writers covering the Senior Open Championship at Royal Troon. The number one question: “What do you call somebody from Kansas?”

“A Kansan,” I tell them without hesitation.

“Where’s the windy bit?” asks the writer for The Scotsman. “Is it the whole state, or more toward the west?”

“I’d say central to west,” I reply, drawing on my long tenure as a licensed Kansas Citian. “You’ve got the Flint Hills, which is tallgrass prairie, and then you’ve got the flatlands out west where they grow winter wheat. The wind can really howl out there.”

“Where’s Hutchinson?” asks the man from The Daily Record.

“Near Wichita.” I throw in a freebie: “Lots of grain elevators.”

Why am I in demand? Because our second-round leader, Bruce Vaughan, is from Hutchinson, Ks., and one of his closest pursuers, Tom Watson, lives on a farm pond in Stilwell, Ks. So naturally the local writers want to know if the film version of The Wizard of Oz can be relied upon for pertinent details of Kansas life.

“It’s spot on,” I tell them, “except for that black-and-white business. Kansas is more sepia-toned until winter sets in, and then it’s battleship gray. You don’t get much color until early summer, when the grasshoppers arrive in great clouds and devour everything.”

The Brits take all this in and tap away merrily on their keyboards. If they ask me directly, I’ll have to confess that I am not a Kansan myself, but more of a … well, a Missourian. I can reach Kansas from my house with a driver and 9-iron, but my tax dollars go to Jefferson City, Mo., and my Border War loyalties go to Mizzou. But I see no need to make that distinction to my new friends, who are treating me like Alistair Cooke.

Watson, meanwhile, turned his post-round press conference into a seminar on the Kansas wind. “Wichita and Oklahoma City are the two windiest cities in the United States,” he said, sounding very convincing, “and Hutchinson is not too far from Wichita. That’s where T. Boone Pickens wants to put all those windmill farms and use up all of the natural gas so we can turn energy consumption to different sources.”

The writer on my left leaned my way and murmured, “Who is T. Boone Pickens?”

“A club pro,” I replied.

The Brits are writing on deadline, so I don’t have the heart to break it to them that Tom Watson is actually a Missouri native and a graduate of Pembroke-Country Day School, a Missouri institution. I’ll save that bit of trivia for some tournament where Watson shares the leader board with Hale Irwin -- the pride of Joplin, Mo.

Before I gave them “Kansan,” by the way, one of the Brits guessed out loud with “Kansites.”

I like it.

(Photo: Phil Inglis/Getty Images)

Shark Still Circling PGA Bait

TROON, SCOTLAND –- Still no word from Greg Norman on whether or not he’ll accept the PGA of America’s last-minute invitation to play in their Championship at Oakland Hills. “He has until Monday to decide,” his bride Chris Evert said this afternoon as she followed Norman in the second round of the Senior British Open at Royal Troon.

“He has a lot to consider,” said Evert, who has faced a few roadforks of her own since retiring from competitive tennis. “What are your motives for playing? Do you play just because you’re flattered that you’ve been invited, or do you play because you feel good about your golf and really want to play?”

The answer, of course, can turn on a single putt that lips out … or tumbles in. As recently as May, Evert pointed out, her part-time-golfer hubbie was a stroke out of the lead with two holes to play in the Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club. “Everybody’s saying it’s great, he’s back!” Evert said. “But then he goes double-bogey, bogey, and it’s, ‘Do I really want to do this?’”

The mood pendulum swung strong the other way last week at Royal Birkdale, where the 53-year-old Norman thrilled the world –- and himself -- with his T-3 finish in the Open Championship. And now it’s swinging back again at Royal Troon, where the Shark made the turn at +6, nine strokes off the lead of Bruce Vaughan and John Cook.

“I’ll give my opinion, but it’s entirely his decision,” Evert said of the PGA invite. “If he wants to play, I want him to play. I just want him to be happy.”

(Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

Mild Makes Wild at Royal Troon

TROON, SCOTLAND –- When does a 12-mph wind wreak more havoc than a 35-mph wind? When it’s coming from the wrong direction, that’s when. As the first day of play ends at the Senior British Open, the scores at Royal Troon are shocking. There are 34 rounds in the 80s, and the average score is almost six over par. Shades of last week’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, where gale-force winds led to similar scores.

But the conditions today are idyllic. It’s been sunny, warm and just breezy enough to keep the flags fluttering. But it’s not the prevailing wind. It’s a southeast current that has made Troon’s front nine, which is normally downwind, play unusually long. The inward wind is similarly bass-ackward, leading to some giant tee shots (Bernhard Langer smacked consecutive drives of 400 yards) and some gargantuan hole scores (17 sevens on the back nine, plus 5 eights and a nine).

“We got on the first tee today, and it was basically a new course for me,” said John Cook, who tied for third after shooting a 2-under-par 69. “I had never seen it with that south/southeast wind blowing. It kept me paying attention, that’s for sure, because I didn’t know quite where to go.”

Another American, three-time New England club-pro champ Kirk Hanefeld, checked in with a 69 of his own. “When we started this morning the wind was coming from the complete opposite direction,” Hanefeld said, “so everything was a little bit of a guess. It was very tough going out, on some of the easiest holes on the golf course, because of the wind direction. It made club selection more difficult than in any of the practice rounds.”

First-round co-leader Eduardo Romero, who bombed a 210-yard 9-iron to birdie the par-3 17th , said, “It’s unbelievable, downwind. And then also, the 16th hole. I had 280 yards [from the tee to the burn]. I laid up, I’m playing with 4-iron, and I go into the water, 280 yards! It’s crazy!”

Get used to it, guys. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for afternoon showers and southerly winds of 10 to 20 mph.

Norman off to slow start at Troon

TROON, Scotland -– Was it the south wind? Or was it the burden of expectations?

Greg Norman chose the former to explain his bumpy start at the Senior British Open. The Shark bogeyed five of the first eight holes at Royal Troon this morning and then failed to capitalize on his opportunities on the homeward nine, finishing at 4-over-par 75.

“I really got off to a poor start,” said Norman, who came to Troon as the favorite after stunning the world with his T-3 finish in last week’s Open Championship. “I never played this golf course in this wind before. I didn’t feel that confident with some of the tee shots, to tell the truth, and I hit it in a couple of divot holes, which didn’t make me feel too good. That was it, really.”

Norman played with defending champion Tom Watson and former Masters and U.S. Open champ Sandy Lyle. Both those golfers agreed that the warm southeast breeze was baffling, even if it never blew more than 10 or 15 mph. “We don’t usually play Troon with this type of wind,” said Watson. “That made it play completely differently than it did Monday and Tuesday.” Lyle, who matched the Australian’s 75, said that Norman had “a little bit of an aerie-faerie start. He looked a little impatient. But he eventually settled down and got some feel back in his game.”

Indeed, Norman birdied 13 and 18 and scared the hole a couple of other times on the closing nine. “I just had to hang in there and gut it out the best I could,” he said. “The ball just wasn’t rolling my way.”

For scores, visit europeantour.com.

(Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

Monotony suits Watson at Troon

TROON, Scotland – “No shanks today.” That was the first thing out of Tom Watson’s mouth this afternoon as he briefed reporters on his 1-under-par 70 in the first round of the Senior British Open. The defending champion could have added, “No tops, skulls, chunks or whiffs, either,” but he didn’t mention any of those calamities yesterday, when he dropped the S-word 13 times in a single press conference.

Today, however, it was Watson’s shankless task to describe a round of unprecedented monotony, a round in which he hit all of Royal Troon’s greens in regulation. “How about that?” he asked. “I’ve never done that before. I don’t think I’ve ever hit 18 greens on Tour, EVER, in my life.”

Despite finding all those greens, Watson had only a few good birdie opportunities this morning, most of his putts being in the 20 to 30-foot range. “I wasn’t that close to the hole,” he conceded. “But I played a good round of golf today.”

The highlight of Watson’s round? Probably the eleventh hole, where a spectator collapsed. “The gentleman was a typical Scot,” said Watson, who went over for a look. “He said, ‘Quiet, they are trying to hit.’ He’s on the ground like this” –- Watson tilted his head and rolled his eyes back to simulate a dying man, gasping. “’Quiet, they’re trying to hit!’”

The afflicted Scot recovered quickly, Watson added, lest we think him heartless.

Anyway, it’s one good round down for the links-loving Missourian, who is trying to accomplish at Royal Troon what he has already done at Turnberry and Muirfield –- win the Senior British Open on a course where he won one of his four five Open championships. But Watson insisted that he looks neither backward nor forward at this stage of his life. He’s all present-tense –- as is Royal Troon, which plays no easier for former champions.

“This course, it takes,” Watson said. “If you hit it in the wrong places, it REALLY takes. You have to avoid those wrong places.”

And you have to avoid the shanks. But that goes without saying.

You’d think.

(Photo: Phil Inglis/Getty Images)

Norman Mulling PGA Invite

TROON, Scotland –- To play or not to play, that is the question. The PGA of America, impressed by Greg Norman’s third-place tie in last week’s British Open, has invited the Shark to the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills outside of Detroit in two weeks.

“I have to make a decision,” Norman said this morning at Royal Troon, site of the British Senior Open, which starts tomorrow. He has until Thursday to make the call, according to the Associated Press.

A no brainer? Not exactly. Norman has already committed to next week’s U.S. Senior Open at the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs. If he adds the PGA to his dance card, that will be four straight weeks of competition for a 53-year-old bloke with a dodgy back and a global business empire to run.

“I have to be careful,” he said. “I can’t go out there and just pound golf balls and pound golf balls.”

Norman also has to consider the fact that his PGA appearance might be anti-climactic because American tournament courses have little in common with the relatively short and windy Royal Birkdale links.

“To go to a behemoth like Bethpage Black [site of the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens] would be more of a mountain to climb,” Norman said. “7,700 yards, heavy rough. I’m strong, but my fingers are not as strong as they used to be. And as soon as you start pushing the golf course to 7,600 yards, it starts to compound the problem a little bit.”

In other words, he might like to sit on his current peak for a while, just to enjoy the view. Norman has gotten more than 500 e-mails and texts since the weekend, many of them from tournament players of a certain age.

“Well, it’s inspirational,” said Sam Torrance, the former European Ryder Cup captain. “I mean, it was the performance of a lifetime, a 53-year-old man leading the Open with nine holes to play. Looked like he turned the clock back 25 years, to be honest.”

The irony, of course, is that Norman went to Royal Birkdale simply as a tune-up for the two senior majors. “I’m warmed up, basically,” he joked before Wednesday's practice round at Troon. “Now I’ve got to step up.”

He’ll get his chance tomorrow at 9:20 a.m. local time (4:20 a.m. ET), when he tees off with defending champ Tom Watson and former Masters and British Open champ Sandy Lyle.

(Photo: John Biever/SI)