Greg Norman's Sentence To Me At The 1993 TPC Sawgrass Is The Coolest Sentence I've Ever Heard
With all the Greg Norman stuff that’s been happening around Barstool, it reminded me of one of my first famous person encounters. This encounter was completely by happenstance so it made it all that more memorable until I forgot it. Let me set the scene.
When I was younger, I lived near Jacksonville, Florida which is near Ponte Vedra which is the home to TPC Sawgrass. My dad was a Navy guy, so we would occasionally get tickets to events on off days. The TPC Sawgrass was no exception. On the Wednesday before the tournament, we got to watch some of the greatest players in the world warm up; they gave military kids a clinic, and I was amazed to see someone hit 300 yard bombs for the first time in my young life. At that point, I had only played around 5 rounds myself but I thought that I mashed the ball. I didnt. I hit it like 100 yards. Seeing the ball fly off the tee of professionals blew my young mind.
Wednesday was magical because it showed just how good these pros were. They could sink putt after putt after putt. 10 yards. 20 yards. 30 yards. It didnt matter. They seemingly didnt miss and I was hooked on golf.
On Thursday, my grandfather told me that we were gonna camp out on hole 6. I wanted to hang out on the hill near 17. The island hole was just about the only thing that I knew about the TPC. I, like many of you, watched SportsCenter over and over and over during my young years so I knew that the Island Hole made for some great moments. He was in charge though so we went to 6.
He was right about one thing. We got really close to the green on 6 and could see most of the players up close; I was thrilled. At one point, we left our spot on 6 and headed to the bathroom and to get a little bite to eat. I got a hotdog while my grandfather was doing a piss.
Because I was only like 10 at the time, I stood pretty close outside the bathroom so I wouldnt get lost. While I had a mouthful of hotdog, I turned around only to see Greg Norman coming out of the bathroom too. “Oh my god. Greg Norman,” I said while chewing. He looked at me and said, “Good dogger there, mate?”
Damn near any golfer in the world could have walked by me and I wouldn’t have known whom they were (incredible use of whom). You knew whom (damn again?) Greg Norman was though. He had his huge hat, his shark logo, and my fandom right there in his pocket. Greg Norman, at that point, was bigger than life. Greg Norman asking me about my dogger gave me life. I feel like I let him down because I had forgotten about that memory until this week. Not only that, but I also forgot about calling hotdogs “doggers” until now and that’s something that will not continue. That’s a promise. Dogger Boys. That’s who I am and that’s whom (running up the score) we are because Greg Norman rattled off the coolest sentence I’ve ever heard outside of hole 6 at the TPC Sawgrass in 1993.
The next year, Greg Norman did this. 24 under. Unreal.