Greg Norman sat with Rock near the 17th green at Augusta National. They were part of a small gallery following Nick Faldo and Ricky Fowler at an exhibition of some sort.
They watched Faldo chip from five feet in front of the green, fifty feet from the pin, which was set eight feet from the back left edge. The ball rolled slowly past Norman and Rock, decelerating as it climbed toward the hole. With Faldo in casual pursuit, his chip missed by inches left and began to pick up speed as it rolled inevitably toward the fringe and the subsequent steep slope that would take it perhaps twenty yards off the green. But Faldo reached down and stopped the ball in its tracks a foot from the fringe. Incredibly, he simply stopped it with the palm of his left hand. A collective gasp rose up from the gallery. Rock was stunned.
"Did you see that?" Rock said.
"I did," Norman said. "And you know what, I can't believe it."
Fowler approached his ball, in the fringe in two, and three feet from where Rock sat. As Fowler walked by, Rock whispered to him. "Did you see what just happened?"
"I didn't see anything. What was it?"
Rock paused. In no more than a spit second it occurred to him that he was about to become part of the story, which as a sportswriter was far down the list of things he wanted. "You know what, never mind. It was probably nothing."
"OK, fine," Fowler said. His attention turned in an instant to the shot before him.
Norman tapped Pete on the shoulder and told him Fowler was not the one to talk to. "If you have any information to share, tell his caddie."
"What would you do?"
"Me, I'd leave it alone."
No comments:
Post a Comment