Norman’s Putt Is on the Money

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s not a bad way to start the New Year, holing a 15-foot birdie putt to finish a $1-million weekend.

Greg Norman did just that on the 36th hole Sunday at Greyhawk Golf Club to win a match-play struggle with Scott Hoch, 1-up, in the Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf.

“I read the green perfectly,” said Norman, who had been hurt by an erratic short game all day. “There weren’t any footprints in my line, the grass was perfect, I had a beautiful spot to aim at--there was a little off-colored piece of grass right on my line--and I had no other thoughts than to hit the putt solid.”

He closed out Hoch after Hoch missed a 16-foot birdie putt.

“I’ll start the year with a lot of confidence,” said Norman, who will skip the PGA Tour’s early season schedule to rest a degenerative back condition. “There was a lot of pressure here. There were four of five swings I didn’t feel comfortable with. I’ll go back and look at that.”

Hoch, who never led, made up a four-hole deficit from the 15th through the 21st holes, but wasn’t able to take advantage of Norman’s mistakes.

“I definitely need to get over the hump, one way or another, in a big tournament, and this was a chance to do it and I just didn’t play well enough,” Hoch said. “I had my chance on the last hole, but that’s the difference. I didn’t convert, and Greg had an opportunity and converted. That’s what the great players do.”

Norman earned $675,000 in the final match after making $325,000 in the International section and Saturday’s semifinals. Hoch earned $500,000, including $175,000 in the final.

In the third-place match, Japan’s Hisayuki Sasaki beat Scotland’s Sam Torrance, 2 and 1, finishing with a six-foot par putt on the 17th hole. Sasaki earned $350,000 and Torrance $300,000.

Norman, who routed Sasaki, 5 and 4, in the semifinals, shot a three-under-par 69 in the first 18 holes against Hoch and added a one-over 73 in the second round.

Hoch was uncharacteristically wild in the morning round, opening with a bogey to fall behind. Hoch also bogeyed Nos. 9, 10 and 18 to offset his four birdies, and matched par on the 6,973-yard layout.

But Norman three-putted the first two greens in the afternoon for bogeys, then ran into more bogey trouble on No. 3 after his second shot landed in an unplayable lie.

“I was just thinking that there was still a long way to go,” Norman said. “You don’t want to do that, but those things happen, and you just have to put them behind you.”