This photo of ex-pro golfer Greg Norman AO (also known as "The Shark") was taken at Capital Golf Course near Melbourne, using a Hasselblad and a large softbox positioned to the side. (Photo, late-1990s.)
This year's U.S. Open Golf Championship is currently being played at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York, which Norman describes as:
'... the hardest fairest golf course in the world.'
In 1986, Norman was leading the U.S. Open at Shinnecock by one stroke after 54 holes, but tanked the final round.
The Aussie golfer's reflection on the "heckling incident" that occurred during the tournament tellingly includes these famous last words: "I should never have done it".
According to the Sport of Australia Hall of Fame:
Despite his huge success on the U.S. PGA TOUR and his many wins around the world, Norman will be forever regarded as an underachiever (given his talents), a characterisation fuelled by his myriad near-misses in the Masters, the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship...
He is one of only two players to have competed in... play-offs in all four major championships. Despite the losses, though, Norman still has 29 top-ten finishes in the majors.
**This photograph is part of an IA series that looks at Australia through the lens of award-winning photojournalist Bill McAuley.**
Bill McAuley's 40-plus-year news career began in 1969 as a cadet photographer at 'The Age' in Melbourne.
He has several published collections, including 'Portraits of the Soul: A lifetime of images with Bill McAuley' and 'Last light on Victoria Dock, 1999'. To see more from Bill, click here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.
Related Articles
- Painters and Dockers 'doing time' at Docklands
- Bushfires frighten all creatures — great and small
- Michael Jackson: Thriller at the 'G'
- Take me to the river: A waterski wedding
- The photographer who got away the day Danny Kaye was front page news
