Stormin' Norman

by Mulligan Stu on Jul 19, 2008 4:49 PM EDT

As Andrew Magee said in exasperation several times during "Big Break: Kaanapali": What is going on here?

David Duval fell back to earth in the third round of the British Open, but not Greg Norman. Norman is orbiting two strokes clear of the field. Yep, the 53-year-old (I've been calling him 52 all week, but he's even more of a golf geezer than I realized) Norman is the British Open leader:

Leaderboard
Greg Norman, 70-70-72--212
Padraig Harrington, 74-68-72--214
K.J. Choi, 72-67-75--214
Simon Wakefield, 71-74-70--215
Ben Curtis, 78-69-70--217
Ross Fisher, 72-74-71--217
Anthony Kim, 72-74-71--217
Alexander Noren, 72-70-75--217
Henrik Stenson, 76-72-70--218
Graeme Storm, 76-70-72--218
Chris Wood, 75-70-73--218
Ian Poulter, 72-71-75--218
Robert Allenby, 69-73-76--218
Rocco Mediate, 69-73-76--218
Full Scoreboard

And next come the power-packed fivesome of Davis Love III, Steve Stricker, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Jim Furyk.

It's been 11 years since Norman won a PGA Tour event; six years since he played more than 10 times on tour; four years since he played more than three PGA Tour tournaments; three years since he made a cut on the PGA Tour.

Norman has been otherwise occupied for a long time, in other words. And that's why I just don't think he'll hold up on Sunday. I hope he does, though, it'd be a great story.

Meanwhile, if the wind continues to howl on Sunday, don't count out the fellas at 219 - Love, Stricker, Goosen, Garcia, Furyk. Any of them might wind up the winner. In these conditions, someone posting a good score early could well sneak away with the Claret Jug.

Poll

If Greg Norman wins the British Open, I will ...

Say "I told you so"

1 votes

Put another shrimp on the barbie

4 votes

Offer to marry Chris Evert

3 votes

Offer to marry Greg Norman

1 votes

Run naked around my local driving range

4 votes

13 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

another great thing

ALL the Tiger Woods’ jock sniffing types in the media who said that this Open would be really boring because Tiger wasn’t here have a lot of crow to eat…not that we would ever hear about it.

the one that really surprised me was Paul Azinger, who did a little sucking up on the air today – he said that Tiger would be licking his chops in these conditions and would just pick off the guys in the field.

You see Pauly – the reason we love sports so much is that the games aren’t played on paper – as good as Tiger is, you don’t know what might have happened if he were healthy enough to tee it up. (our Ryder Cup is in trouble with this clown as captain. Any chance the team will just ignore him and play with who and how they want ?)

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Jul 19, 2008 6:18 PM EDT reply actions