TROON, Scotland — While four-time major champion Rory McIlroy and Greg Norman have been the competing faces of a heated dispute between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf the past three years, they’re probably more alike — and intricately linked — than either would prefer to admit.
Norman won 88 times around the world and was ranked No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking for 331 weeks. He captured The Open in 1986 and 1993 but squandered plenty of other opportunities for additional major championship victories during his Hall of Fame career.
Heading into this week’s 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon Golf Course, McIlroy has piled up 40 worldwide victories, including 26 on the PGA Tour, and has completed three of the four legs of the career Grand Slam — all but the Masters.
When McIlroy tees off Thursday on Scotland’s west coast, he’ll try to recover from one of the most painful episodes of his impressive career — and a near-miss Norman knows all too well.
More than two years ago, during a phone interview with Norman, a reporter mentioned that a recently released ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, “Shark,” had been difficult to watch.
“No s—,” Norman said. “You should have lived it.”
In April 1996, Norman suffered his most painful collapse at Augusta National Golf Club. The Australian had led each of the first three rounds and entered the final one with a 6-shot lead over England’s Nick Faldo.
Norman made the turn at 2 over, trimming his lead over Faldo to only 2 shots. Then Norman made bogeys on Nos. 9, 10 and 11 and a double bogey on 12. He posted a 6-over 78 in the final round and finished 5 shots behind Faldo in what was one of the greatest collapses in major championship history.
Norman was a three-time runner-up in the Masters and finished in the top five eight times. He never won a green jacket — and the Shark didn’t capture another major after his final-round debacle at Augusta National.
“It’s only a game,” Norman said in 2021. “It’s nothing else. It didn’t affect my health where I was suddenly incapacitated for the rest of my life. Things happen in sport. If you are going to let a negative result affect you then you aren’t a very strong person. I have never been that way, I never cried over spilt milk. You move on in life.”
That’s exactly what McIlroy is trying to do this week.