SN Archive (1999): Greg Norman describes how his 1996 Masters collapse changed his life

Q: What happened during Greg Norman's 1996 Masters collapse?

Greg Norman experienced a significant collapse during the final round of the 1996 Masters, which is considered one of the most dramatic in golf history.

Q: How did the 1996 Masters collapse affect Greg Norman's career?

The collapse has been described as a defining moment that shaped Norman's legacy and perception in the sports world.

Q: What anniversary is being marked for Greg Norman's 1996 Masters collapse?

The 2026 Masters will mark the 30th anniversary of Greg Norman's infamous collapse at Augusta.

Q: Who wrote about Greg Norman's reflections on his 1996 Masters experience?

Dave Kindred wrote about Greg Norman's reflections in the article titled 'The Master of Sports' Losers,' originally published in 1999.

Greg Norman during final round of 1996 Masters

SN Archive (1999): Greg Norman describes how his 1996 Masters collapse changed his life originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The 2026 Masters marks the 30th anniversary of Greg Norman's infamous collapse in the final round at Augusta. This article, 'The Master of Sports' Losers' by Dave Kindred, features Norman reflecting on his legacy and originally appeared in the April 19, 1999 issue of The Sporting News.

For almost two decades, Greg Norman has been sports' most spectacular loser, a train wreck burning in the night.

Either heroically or for lack of better sense, he keeps coming back for more. This after humiliations so prodigious that any one of them would be reason enough to crawl into a cave and pray for the earth to fall about his ears.

But came another April, another Masters, and there he was.

Golden in the April sunlight. Walking with that airy swagger. Smiling under that hat. Norman the unconquered.

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“I've always said I don't live in the past,” he said the day before he put himself at risk again. “What's done is done,” he said the day before the last round of this Masters tournament. “I've never believed in crying over spilt milk,” he said, the man protesting too much, for who among us is not the product of our past?

So on a glorious, steamy, sunny Sunday, Norman walked onto the first tee at Augusta National Golf Club and heard from the assembled spectators a warming wash of huzzahs wishing him well. Who, after all, would be so cruel as to wish the man to spill his milk even one more time? Odd, this loser's aura about Norman.

For good or ill, the greatest champions are warriors who will rip your heart out and eat it in their hands. But Norman's work has certified him as a sociable, even affable entertainer. In truth, it goes beyond even that.

Always gifted but never a killer, Norman has seemed comfortable as a victim.

In 71 other majors, he had 26 top-10 finishes but only two victories, both in the British Open. Eight times he had finished second; he had lost playoffs for all four majors, the most dubious of Grand Slams.

The telling comparison is to his rival Nick Faldo, who won six majors on 23 top-10 finishes in 67 tournaments. Only three times did Faldo finish second.

We know the losers. There's Fran Tarkenton oh-for-forever in Super Bowls. There's Wilt Chamberlain bowing to Bill Russell. The Dodgers couldn't handle the Yankees. The Bills couldn't handle anybody. But no player in any game has lost more horrifically in more public circumstances than Norman.

He has suffered disasters enough to ruin four good men, let alone a man once anointed by Jack Nicklaus as the next great player.

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Norman lost a PGA Championship when Bob Tway holed a sand shot on the 72nd hole.

He lost a Masters when Larry Mize pitched in from 140 feet on the second hole of sudden death.

He lost a British Open playoff by putting a tee shot in a bunker from which there was no escape.

Remarkably, after each humiliation, Norman moved with certain grace. He faced the music. He said he would be back. Some people even believed him. And there he was on a Sunday at Augusta, golden again, running in an eagle putt in the last hour. And everywhere he went, encouraging applause followed before he finished third at 5-under, three strokes off the pace set by Jose Maria Olazabal.

For good or ill, the greatest champions are warriors who will rip your heart out and eat it in their hands... Always gifted but never a killer, Norman has seemed comfortable as a victim.

Once golfs top dog, Norman has become everyone's favorite underdog. Folks were weary of the same of train wreck. They wanted to see him get home in one piece.

“Sentimental favorite?” he says. Laughing now: “How do you determine that? From '96, or because I'm getting old?”

The number, '96, is shorthand for his most crushing catastrophe. Three Aprils ago, the man now 44 years old threw away a six-shot lead on Sunday and lost by five shots to Faldo, who said to Norman at day's end, “I'm so sorry.” When a stone-hearted killer feels sorry for you, you're pretty much dead for all-time.

I certainly didn't believe that Norman could endure such a public flogging and come back for more. But then, I had been wrong about Norman before.

In 1990, in the third round of the British Open at St Andrews, Faldo handed Norman his head, 67 to 76. Faldo won and Norman closed with a meaningless 72nd-hole birdie that he celebrated by raising high both arms, an entertainer to the end. But three years later, Norman won the British by two shots—over Faldo.

And now, happily, amazingly, we're all wrong again— and doubly so this time, because not only has Norman survived the psychic damage of '96, he also has danced into the spotlight a year after undergoing surgery to repair a shoulder joint torn apart by years of pounding golf balls.

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As to how a man does this, Norman insists—and with some supporting evidence—that he forgets the train wreck as soon as it's over.

In fact, Norman goes "so 96 changed my life... It made me far as to say, appreciate people in a different way because of the support they gave me.” He says he received thousands of encouraging letters and receives them still.

As a result, Norman says, he plays with less of a sense of urgency, not trying to force the issue, relaxing instead of hurrying to make something happen. Instead of flying a 4-iron second shot over the pond fronting the 15th hole, for instance, Norman on Friday laid up short of the water for a wedge shot that led to an easy par. Nothing heroic there, no swashbuckling adventure.

But neither was it a double-bogey catastrophe created by that “sense of urgency” that so often has moved the old thrill-seeking Norman to try feats of derring-do.

“Ten years ago,” someone asked, “would you have hit the 4-iron there?” “Ten years ago,” he said, smiling at the memory of the man he'd been, “I would have probably hit a 5-iron.”