Woods nudges Norman from golf's spotlight
By RON SIRAK / AP Golf Writer
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) - Fame is a funny thing. Players work hard
to get it, work just as hard to dodge the distractions once it
comes and then miss it more than they ever thought they would
when it vanishes.
Ask Tiger Woods. Ask Greg Norman.
Watch them this week in the U.S. Open at Congressional Country
Club as they struggle to deflect, reflect and absorb varying rays
of the spotlight.
For more than a decade, Norman was the glamour guy of golf,
the one all the fans wanted to follow, all the reporters wanted
to interview and all the companies wanted to have endorse their
products.
Now it's Woods.
And in some ways that fall from center stage, that push to
the periphery of the spotlight, might have hurt Norman's enormous
ego more than even his crushing Masters loss to Nick Faldo last
year.
Even after blowing a six-stroke lead in the final round, Norman
was still the top dog in the game. He got more attention for his
defeat at Augusta than Faldo got for winning his sixth major championship.
Then along came Woods, and about the only way Norman could
get in the headlines was to have President Clinton fall down his
stairs.
Norman says he couldn't be happier about the emergence of Woods,
that now he can concentrate entirely on golf.
"I think it's great," Norman said Tuesday at Congressional.
"I love it. I really do. ... It's always nice to have someone
else out there just to take a little bit off your shoulders."
Perhaps that is true. Norman has played little this year and
missed the cut at the Masters. But he played strongly the last
two weeks and could benefit from all the attention on Woods.
For the first time in quite a while the dominant storyline
in Bethesda won't be wondering if Norman will finally win a major
championship in the United States. And that just might create
an atmosphere in which Norman will win.
"Believe me," Norman said, "I'm not one bit
jealous of Tiger Woods. I'm not envious of Tiger Woods. I welcome
him out here."
There is a ring of truth in those words, but at the same time
there is a note of longing in Norman's actions. Maybe he misses
the spotlight more than he admits.
On Monday, Norman and his family decided to visit an old friend
while in the Washington area - Clinton.
And all the media were duly informed.
Later in the day, Norman decided to make a little purchase
- a $30.5 million Boeing 737 reconfigured for offices, meeting
rooms, a private living area, a workout room and a satellite communications
suite.
And all the media were duly informed. In fact, Norman called
a news conference and issued a press release to announce the purchase.
Suddenly the shadow sliding into the spotlight had a distinctive
hooked nose and shaggy hair sticking out from under a wide-brim
straw hat. For a guy who said he was glad to have someone else
be top dog, Norman certainly was acting like someone who missed
the attention.
Woods, meanwhile, went through his private version of the movie
"Groundhog Day" in which Bill Murray was doomed to live
the same day over and over again.
Once again, Woods had a Tuesday news conference and once again
he answered essentially the same questions he has answered at
each of the 10 previous such sessions he has had this year.
When asked the hardest part of his success, Woods mentions
the demands on his time - requests for autographs and interviews,
the difficulty of going out to dinner without being interrupted.
"I can't be the champion of all causes," Woods said.
"I just want to be a golfer."
However, his game, his age, his race - and Nike - have made
Woods much more than a golfer. They have also made him very wealthy.
The punishing glare of the spotlight is part of the price he has
to pay.
But some day, perhaps 20 years from now, when the glow of that
light fades, Woods will truly appreciate how great his time on
center stage was.
If he wants to gain that appreciation now he need only look
at how Norman already misses his starring role.
And if history has any sense of humor, any sense of the absurd
or the dramatic, it will focus all attention on these two men
late on Sunday afternoon, the past and future glamour guys of
golf - contrasting silhouettes in the spotlight of fame.
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