Last week I bought a bottle of Greg Norman Santa Barbara Chardonnay and received an e-mail from a developer selling condos around a Norman-designed golf course, the St. Lucia Paradis Resort in the Caribbean, but I certainly hadn’t seen the golf legend’s name on a leaderboard for some time until this weekend.
It’s rare when a simple return to competitive play and being in contention elicits such excitement among professional golf fans, but such was the case at last week’s Senior PGA Championship at the venerable Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.
Norman’s return — just his third Champions Tour event in the last two years — and subsequent sixth-place finish were not without dramatic flourish and stylistic flair. During Sunday’s final round he made four birdies in a five-hole stretch which temporarily vaulted him within one stroke of the leader and eventual tournament winner Jay Haas.
Stylistically, he may even have elevated his game.
During the second and third rounds he sported striking argyle sweaters and capped that off on Sunday, when the weather was more clement, with a slim fitting "carbon" (basic blue) performance mock tee from the Greg Norman spring 2008 collection. The argyles — one a vest, the other a long-sleeve zip neck — were nothing short of a solid reinterpretation of a timeless classic.
Will we see more of Norman? A fair question with an answer many of us might not want to hear. He does plan on playing the U.S. Senior and British Senior Opens. It is also reasonable speculation that he will tee it up a couple of times on the PGA Tour — better to keep a close eye on the competition and the International Team players he will captain in next year’s President’s Cup. As for being a regular on the Champions Tour, Norman was unapologetic for his absence.
"I have no interest in putting a schedule together and going and playing more golf, absolutely not," Norman told The Golf Channel. "Why do I want to go back and start playing golf again when I’ve got so many good things going in my life right now?"
Besides his far-flung business interests, which include real estate, his sportswear line, course design and wineries, Norman is particularly content with his private life now. The Senior PGA Championship marked one of the first times his fiancee and former tennis great Chris Evert attended a tournament with him since their engagement in December. And Norman has said he’s playing more tennis these days than golf.– RW