The leaders had just finished No. 12, but Price knew what lay ahead.

``Greg wants that green jacket as bad, if not more than anybody else. He's obviously not in the same frame of mind he was in yesterday,'' said Price, whose mood then suddenly soured.

``This is upsetting ... it hurts me to watch. It's making me sick to my stomach,'' he quickly added while scurrying away.

Price seemed to take Norman's final-round collapse at the Masters Tournament harder than the man who dominated for the first three rounds.

Only 5 hours earlier, Price was confident of a Norman conquest.

He wanted his friend to win that first Masters and even left a note of encouragement on Norman's locker before the round. Price couldn't, and didn't, foresee Norman's final-round 78, which led to the biggest collapse in Masters history, and Faldo's fabulous charge to his third green jacket.

``I think it'll pretty much be a done deal by the time he gets to 15,'' Price said.

He meant Norman would be in control, but it was Faldo who took the lead when the Australian double-bogeyed No. 12 and cemented it when Norman found the water on No. 16.

But the man who watched the collapse from the television tower saw it coming as early as No. 9, which Norman bogeyed to let Faldo creep within two shots.

Ken Venturi, CBS' veteran golf analyst, held a four-shot lead heading into the final round of the 1956 Masters before posting a score of 80 and losing by one stroke to Jack Burke Jr.

Memories of the fateful day came flooding back to Venturi, sitting in CBS' green tower as Norman's lead quickly dwindled.

``I related to it,'' Venturi said. ``He was looking but wasn't seeing anything. He just went through the motions and tried to regroup mentally. Unless you've been there, you just can't relate. It's hard to put into words. Some things happen, I guess.''

Somehow, that's the way Norman looks at it.

The man who used to hunt sharks, who flies Air Force fighter jets in his spare time and who turned a $38 million profit from a business deal last fall seemingly shook off the loss just moments after leaving the 18th green.

After all, he is experienced at this.

Norman has finished second 52 times in his illustrious 20-year career, including three runner-up finishes in 16 Masters.

``I screwed up. Yeah, I know I screwed up,'' Norman said. ``But it's not the end of the world for me. I'm disappointed. I'm sad about it. I'm going to regret it. But I'm not going to fall off the face of the earth because of what's happened. It's not going to affect my life. Please believe me.''

Norman also has 73 victories worldwide, and the confidence garnered from all those championships will help him get through this troubling time.

He knows he'll be back in the Masters next spring, and maybe that will be his time to enjoy one of the few things he has yet to accomplish: To slip on that green jacket.

``I know I'm a winner,'' Norman said. ``I'm not a loser in life. I win golf tournaments. I've won more than my share. I just didn't win today. My life will go on.''