Greg Norman is making noise these days as CEO for LIV Golf Investments and commissioner of a proposed Saudi Arabian-backed rival league to the PGA Tour, but come early April it will be difficult to forget the haunting gasps of his final-round collapse in the 1996 Masters.
Norman's career will be examined in ESPN's latest "30 for 30" series installment, "Shark," which will premiere on April 5 at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. The film will be made available on ESPN+ immediately after its premiere.
The episode is co-directed by Jason Hehir, who was heralded for his work on "The Last Dance," which chronicled Michael Jordan's championship seasons with the Chicago Bulls.
Norman returns to Augusta National to discuss the final round that occurred 25 years earlier, a day in which Norman squandered a six-stroke lead and ultimately lost to Nick Faldo.
"There are places in sports that have such a mystique that they can forever shape the way we remember an athlete," Hehir said. "Augusta National is one of those places. Greg Norman is by any objective measure one of the greatest golfers to ever play the game. Two-time major winner, 331 weeks at world number one, leading money winner in PGA history pre-Tiger, one of the few indelible players of his era.
"But despite all his success, he’s perhaps remembered most for his failure at the Masters, particularly his excruciating collapse on that final Sunday in 1996. I was excited for the opportunity to tell the story of one man’s career through the prism of such a sacred site, and to examine the power of one place to mold a man’s legacy, for better or worse.”
Norman, 67, was a three-time runner-up at the Masters, 1996 being the last. He won a pair of British Opens in 1986 and 1993.
