"At the end," says Chirkinian, "it looked like a car wreck with the leftfront wheel just spinning to a close. It was awful to watch."

Faldo embraced the fallen star on the 18th green, a snapshot that summed up a bitter irony—Norman’s greatest failure had finally won over the competition. Still, his body had begun to fail him long before the back nine at Augusta, and the office had more appeal than ever.

Norman typically rises at 4:30 a.m. to prepare for the day ahead and begins answering e-mail from his home office by 7:15. He’s in the office by 8, leaves after lunch to work out and hit balls (when his back allows) and does some telephone work from home in the evenings. He’s away on business roughly 40 weeks of the year, as he has been since he turned pro.

His biographer Lauren St. John and others have suggested his drive for business success and everything else he’s ever done has been to please his stern father Merv, who didn’t hide his disgust when at 17 Greg ditched his plan to fly for the Royal Australian Air Force and set out to become a pro golfer.

Merv was never the hugging type to begin with, but his son’s career choice left him cold, and the two were estranged for almost two decades. The relationship began to thaw in 1991, and, although Merv seemed relatively unmoved by Norman’s on-course heroics, he told Sports Illustrated in 1996, "He’s a very good businessman."

Norman remains a very good golfer, too, still capable of reverting to his vintage, mid-80s form. He and Steve Elkington were threatening to finish last at the Shootout in November when Elkington tweaked his partner’s swing late Saturday. Revitalized, Norman got his swagger back in the final round, hitting towering drives and laser-like iron shots, the best of which was a 4-iron to within inches of the cup for an eagle on the 17th hole. The duo shot a 55, low even for the birdie-fest scramble format, climbing from 11th to fourth place.

"I’ll probably play in one senior tour event in 2006, the Outback Steakhouse event, because of my friendship with [Outback founder and CEO] Chris Sullivan," Norman says. "Then I won’t play a senior event until the Senior PGA Championship and the senior majors—and some regular Tour events. I’ll go back to my favorite stomping grounds like Harbour Town, and I’ll play the British Open."

The British, in which Norman has made 20 straight cuts, a record among active players, is where he made his return last summer with a tie for 60th. He went on to notch top-five finishes at the Senior British Open and the U.S. Senior Open before missing the cut at the International, which he played as a favor to friend Jack Vickers, the Denver oil-and-gas magnate. (He WD’d from the PGA Championship with a sore back.)

But it’s business, the tie that binds, that will be Norman’s legacy and blot out the freak shots and strategic miscalculations. (By the way, where is Larry Mize now, anyway?) The 88 worldwide victories and two British Opens were means to an end and Mize and Tway can’t do a thing about it. Nothing can stop Norman now, and if that isn’t the God’s honest truth he’ll eat the cover off that golf ball.