Next, He’ll Walk on a Water Hole

TOLEDO, Ohio — Well, that settles one thing.

God wants Greg Norman to win the PGA golf tournament here this week.

If I were the rest of the field, I’d pack it in. They should make a grotto out of the 13th hole here at Inverness. Invite the sick. The last time anything this miraculous happened, there was a bolt of lightning and a clap of thunder first.

For an encore, Norman should walk on water, multiply fishes. Get close to him in a lifeboat. Or a thunderstorm.

The situation was this at Inverness Country Club Saturday: Greg Norman, well in the lead, was sauntering along with his second major tournament victory in less than a month safely in his bag when word began to sift back that a young man with a name that sounds like a lisp, Bob Tway, was suddenly seven under par, and a tournament that had seemed as one-sided as a flood was all at once an even-money proposition, a contest.

Greg Norman, 10 under par, drove his tee shot in the broccoli overhanging a sand trap in the 13th rough. He swiped at it like a guy hanging a picture off a shaky ladder--and drove it under a tree. He slashed at that backhanded. He dribbled that in a clump off the green.

He lay 4 on a par-5 green and was staring a 7 or an 8 squarely in the face. You or I would have made an 11 from there.

When a crack golfer leaves the pin in, you know it means he knows he has no chance to sink the shot. He’s just trying to save a bogey or double.

When I tell you that ball hit that pin and fell down in the hole like a swatted rat, you may want to re-think your position on Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

The ball has to hit the pin, otherwise it is running yet--or coming to rest in traffic out on Reynolds Avenue. The shot is right out of Lourdes. You get the feeling if Norman could make that, he could part the Red Sea for an encore.

For the rest of the field it must now occur that they can’t fight Inverness and Heaven, too. They should get the message: “All right, Greg, if you want to play golf, play golf. If you want miracles, we quit.”

It was the second day in a row that Greg Norman pulled something out of the bag that had a halo on it. On Friday, struggling after bogeys on 11 and 14, he skulled a wedge (on purpose, he says, but I always say that, too) into the hole on 15, saving par from certain bogey--or worse.

That incident steadied him on Friday, and he birdied in to the clubhouse to turn a tournament into a recital and the field into a chorus. His game had been “coming off the rails” before that happened, he admitted in the press tent later.

His chip Saturday should have had a choir and organ music and incense accompaniment, too. As with the day before, it made Norman a conqueror once more, and he birdied 16. And instead of being at or in a tie with Bob Tway, he holed out on 18 with a four-shot lead. As the Good Lord obviously intended.

The sad fact is, Greg Norman probably needs divine intervention less than anybody in the field. Of all the people in the 1986 PGA, he’s most in a position to say, “Please, I’d rather do it myself!”

Listen to him explain his Miracle on Dorr Street for the assembled press: “I hit a drive in the rough and a 6-iron under a tree. I had to hold a sand wedge left-handed and upside-down, and I moved it five feet. I had 73 feet to the front of the green, and I hit it 50 feet. Then, I hit a routine chip for a 5.”

When the laughter had subsided, Norman smiled and said:. “I was so mad at myself that I said to myself, ‘I’m going to chip that sumbitch right in the hole and get outta here!’ You know, it was one of those deals where you have to be positive. You have to have faith and never give up. I saw that ball going in all the way in my mind. I believed. “

Noah couldn’t have said it any better.

Somebody up there likes Greg Norman. The last guy to get this lucky, the lions wouldn’t eat.

Bob Tway, on the other hand, was on his own all day. The only time he had a putt over 20 feet, he not only missed it but also three-putted the hole. He broke the course record and tied the tournament record (64) with no signs from on high.

Jack Nicklaus had to make do with a putter that didn’t glow in the dark or without a wedge found under a burning bush.

If Heaven can wait, can anybody in the field overtake Greg Norman in this golf tournament?

I’d think twice if I were they. I not only wouldn’t want to beat him, I’d also want him to touch me if I got sick. And if he wins, start calling him Oral.