It was a 4, a bogey. But it wasn’t just any bogey.
For Greg Norman, it might have been the best bogey of his career. It was a 4 that could have been a 6, which might have booted him out of the Masters.
Norman lost his ball on the par-3 12th hole, but he didn’t lose his composure.
“I guess at the end of the day, four was going to be the score,” said Norman, who shot a 71, leaving him one shot in back of Jose Maria Olazabal.
Norman’s troubles started when he hit an 8-iron 20 yards over the green on the 157-yard hole. The ball plunged into an area of pine straw and vines. When his group came over, the ball was nowhere to be found.
They looked for five minutes, but no ball. Finally, Norman had to accept his penalty–one stroke and the long walk back to the tee to hit again.
“The official asked me if I wanted to ride, and the last thing I wanted was to get there quickly,” Norman said. “I wanted to take my time and gather my place and momentum.”
Norman did, knocking his third shot to within 22 feet. Then he knocked in a putt for a bogey.
“When I got there, I saw the putt all the way,” Norman said. “I never doubted I was going to miss the putt.”
As for the ball, it was found. About 50 minutes after Norman hit his shot, CBS’ Bobby Clampett, Tim Rosaforte of Golf World and Christine Brennan of USA Today went on the search. It took them 10 minutes, but Clampett found the Maxfli “about 7 to 10 feet to the right of where they were looking,” Brennan said.
No word on whether the trio received the $500 Norman jokingly offered to the person who found the ball. It’s just as well that Norman didn’t find it himself.
His only shot would have been to knock it into the sand trap. That would have left him with a tough up-and-down for bogey.
“I can’t speculate on (what would have happened if he found the ball),” Norman said. “Four was probably going to be a good score on that anyway.”
