We’re a couple of weekends away from the playing of the game’s first major championship of the season. The Masters tees it up in 12 days for the 80th time. All the big names of the modern era will be attempting to don the heralded green jacket as the Masters champion. This modern era of power golf began with Tiger Woods in the late 1990s and has extended into the current millennium, led by the likes of defending champ Jordan Spieth, two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson, Irishman Rory McIlroy and PGA titlist Jason Day, among others.
Yet it was exactly 20 years ago at the Masters that golf’s second era of European domination came to a chilling end, ready to usher in this new era of young bombers.
By 1996, seven of the previous nine Masters had been captured by stars of the European Tour. The top names of the game included Euros Nick Faldo, Seve Ballersteros, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle. While he wasn’t as successful as some of the aforementioned, the most popular player of that time was Australian Greg Norman. He was the Arnold Palmer of his era, winning as well as losing in dramatic style.
When the 1996 Masters teed it up on April 11, Norman, a two-time winner of the British Open who had experienced heartbreaking losses in the Masters in 1986 and 1987, was 39 years old and nearing the end of his career. Yet after all the near misses in all of the major championships, it finally looked as if Norman would break through in the ’96 Masters and acquire his third grand slam title. His driving and putting that week was top notch.
In beautiful Georgia spring weather on Thursday morning, Norman tied the tournament course record with a brilliant 9-under-par 63 to take a two-stroke lead over a young Phil Mickelson. He followed it up on Friday with a 69 under tougher conditions and watched his lead grow to four shots over Nick Faldo, the winner of the Masters in 1989 and 1990. On Saturday, the wind picked up, the greens became firmer, and the scores got even higher on the Masters’ leader board. Norman carded a 1-under-par 71 only to see his lead grow to six shots. Faldo had carded a 73 that day was a distant second while Mickelson was one shot farther back, a full seven shots off the pace. It seemed as if the Masters was as good as over.
Sunday, April 14 was to be Norman’s coronation at Augusta National. Ken Venturi had once lost as big a lead in the 1956 Masters to Jackie Burke, but Venturi was still a young amateur at that time and Burke was an experienced second fiddle in the Ben Hogan-Byron Nelson-Sam Snead era who would also win the PGA Championship that year. Norman had his share of defeats in previous major championships, but they had always been the result of a great final round by Jack Nicklaus or a sand trap hole-out by Bob Tway or a miracle chip-in by Larry Mize. He was usually a pretty solid front runner and it was fully expected that he would maintain some form of his six-shot lead and finally get to put on the Masters green jacket that evening.
Of course, such was not the case, according to golf history. Norman bogeyed the opening hole on Sunday and the lead was down to five. Faldo and Norman matched birdies on the par-5 second hole. Norman lost another shot with a bogey on the fourth hole. Faldo bogeyed the fifth and the lead was still five strokes. Faldo made birdie on the long par-3 sixth hole and was now four shots back. On the difficult ninth hole, Faldo made a great birdie while Norman stumbled with a weak second shot and carded a bogey. With nine holes to go, Norman’s lead was down to two strokes. Faldo had shot 34, Norman had made the turn in 38, and the Masters, which is always determined over Sunday’s final nine, was suddenly up for grabs.
During the course of the final nine holes at Augusta National, Greg Norman lost his game. He made bogeys on the 10th and 11th holes and was tied with Faldo. Faldo added a third consecutive par on the 12th and gained the lead with a watery double-bogey by Norman. Both birdied the par-5 13th and Faldo remained two ahead. Still trailing by two strokes, Norman just missed holing out an eagle chip shot on the par-5 15th and had to settle for birdie. Faldo matched him. On the par-3 16th hole, Norman hit one of the worst shots of his career as he snap-hooked his tee shot into the water. The resulting double-bogey put him four strokes behind Faldo. A birdie on 18 by Faldo was merely window dressing as Faldo shot a final-round 67 to win his third Masters and sixth and final major championship by five shots. With the Masters on the line, Faldo had carded a final-nine score of 33 while Norman had shot a 40.
The 1996 Masters was like the great prize fight that closed out an era. Norman would win twice on the PGA Tour in 1997, but by then he was 42 years old and his skills had started to diminish. Faldo, who was 39 years old at the time of his final Masters triumph, would meet a similar fate. He would win the 1997 Los Angeles Open and then see his game drop off as he entered his 40s. The Faldo-Norman heavyweight golf match at the 1996 Masters was the final moment on golf’s center stage for the European invasion that dominated golf from the conclusion of the Jack Nicklaus-Tom Watson era of the early 1980s to that sunny afternoon in Augusta, Georgia in 1996.
Meanwhile, Tiger Woods was in the spring of his sophomore year at Stanford. He would win a third U.S. Amateur title that August, turn professional in September, win twice on the PGA Tour that autumn, and make his big splash the following April, winning the 1997 Masters in runaway style. Phil Mickelson had already won 10 PGA Tour events during a five-year period of time and would prove to be Woods’ foil for the next two decades. Ernie Els, who had already won the 1994 U.S. Open, would also rise to the top of the game alongside Vijay Singh of Fiji and a pair of steady Americans, namely Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker. The new breed had taken over in much the same way we’ve observed Rory and Jordan and Jason take the mantle from that generation of Tiger, Phil, Ernie and Vijay.
In the world of sports, the break from one era to another is never all that clean and concise. Yet 20 years ago in 1996 at the Masters, with the greats of the game still playing balata golf balls and some of them still using persimmon headed drivers, Nick Faldo and Greg Norman closed the pages on a 15-year era of European and foreign domination. They didn’t know it at the time but their era was coming to a close and a college kid in Palo Alto was ready to emerge.
