Jim McCabe

SOUTHPORT, England -

A reminder of athletic glory from another era, Chris Evert, was outside the ropes. But that wasn’t all Greg Norman brought with him to Thursday’s opening round of the 137^th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

No, sir. Norman provided a little bit of yesteryear’s dazzle inside the ropes, too, shooting an even-par 70 to sit in a tie for fourth after one round.

Oh, he may be 10 years removed from his last victory of any note and 15 years separated from the second of his Claret Jugs that put a splendid frame around his career, but Norman at 53 still has a presence — a duende, if you will — that is hard to put into words. So you simply must watch, and when the viewing is as splendid as it was on a demanding day for golf — what with whipping wind and pelting rain — it reminds you that hard as it is to believe, there was indeed a time before Tiger Woods when giants commanded our attention.

Great White Sharks, even.

That is the nickname that helped launched a clothing line, one of the many profitable ventures that dominated Norman’s interests and hastened his exit from full-time PGA Tour duties many years ago. Wine, turf, real estate, golf course architecture, airplanes, helicopters, yachts ...  all of that pulled him away from golf, too, in such a manner that by the time he was 40 years old, Norman couldn’t have been considered a full-time golfer.

Not that anyone could have ever blamed him, of course. After all, there were all those millions of dollars.

He was a Renaissance Man, of sorts, an interested observer/investor/creator of all things under the sun — or so it seemed. But if you wanted him for only his golf, you always felt a bit cheated. He was good, yes, but he should have been better. He won a lot, yes, but he should have won more. He provided thrills, for sure, but damned if he didn’t script a bunch of heartache.

Slide show   British Open moments Scenes from golf’s third major, taking place at Royal Birkdale Golf Club. more photos

To a generation of golf fans who think Woods is the only one who can tickle the fabled Grand Slam, take note some day of Norman’s 1986 season and don’t laugh when it is suggested he was agonizingly close to winning all four majors that incredible season. How many green jackets should be hanging in his closet? One? Two? If you said three or four, no one who was part of his era would argue with you.

How did he not win the U.S. Open in 1984? The same way he didn’t win a number of other major championships.

But here was the true glory of Norman: He invented resiliency. OK, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he only refined it, but for sure he lived it. Never did he run from the questions or try to duck the realities of so many final scores that didn’t go his way. Though he stands just 6 feet tall, Norman always appeared to be much larger in real life, his power dominating, his aura remarkable.

That is what was so cool about a brutally difficult first round to this 137^th British Open, because no matter that Norman has a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t be that competitive on the golf course, there’s one that keeps your eyes glued to him.

“The man can still play,” said Tony Navarro.

Navarro has caddied for more years than he’d care to remember — for the game’s best players, too — and he was on the bag for one of Norman’s British Open triumphs, not to mention more than a dozen other titles worldwide. But Navarro wasn’t able to see too much of Norman’s two-birdie, two-bogey round that got him within a stroke of the lead. That’s because Navarro caddies for Norman’s protégé, Adam Scott, and they were two groups behind the 53-year-old, also shooting 70, by the way.

What Navarro would have seen was a guy whose sense of the game appears to be fully intact, whose ball-striking, while not overpowering, is still pretty darn good, and whose putting stroke appeared capable, if not dazzling. But most of all, Navarro would have seen what thousands of diehard golf fans saw, even through the rain and wind — the man can still push the passion to the surface on occasion.

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