Is Stacy Lewis Becoming the New Greg Norman?

I had to shake my head a bit Saturday as I watched the quit of the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters. (You can study the Constructivist's summary here.) It's as if records is repeating itself.

It was best more than one months in the past that Stacy Lewis appeared to have the new Reignwood LPGA Classic in Beijing well in hand. Stacy had shot -five within the final spherical and led place of birth favored Shanshan Feng by using a stroke when the unthinkable passed off. Feng went for the inexperienced on the par-five 18th along with her 2d shot and notion she had hit her ball within the water.

Not pretty. Instead, the ball skipped off a pylon and snuggled up close to the flag, giving Feng a walk-off eagle and a one-shot victory over Lewis. A shell-stunned Stacy became much less than satisfied with how she felt the lovers acted, made some comments, and eventually signed off Twitter. (The account continues to be there, she just isn't tweeting anymore.)

And now, two months later, it came about again. Stacy stepped onto the thirteenth tee with a three-shot lead, simplest shoot 1 at the final 6 holes at the same time as Pornanong Phatlum shot three-under at the identical stretch. On yet every other par-five 18th, Stacy -- this time tied for the lead -- hit her third from a poor lie onto the inexperienced about forty feet from the hole... Only to watch Phatlum almost fly her third into the hollow. That ball stopped an insignificant 2 toes away and Phatlum tapped in for birdie, stealing a victory that had seemed to be Stacy's from spherical 1.

That's shockers in as many months for her. I couldn't assist but consider every other golfer who skilled extra than his proportion of "trophy thefts":

• At the 1986 PGA Championship Bob Tway holed out from a greenside bunker on the 18th to beat Greg Norman.
• At the 1987 Masters Larry Mize chipped in on the second playoff hole from 47 yards away to beat him.
• At the 1990 USF&G Classic (now the Zurich Classic) David Frost holed out from the greenside bunker on the 18th to beat him.

And those are just the dramatic defeats. There were several other tournaments that he lost by narrow margins when it looked like he would win. (It's easy to forget that he led all 4 majors going into the last round in 1986, yet only won the Open Championship that year. The Tway hole-out was merely the coup de grâce.)

Greg Norman has always been one of my golf heroes, not so much because of the way he won but because of the way he lost. He was always gracious, always complementary to the guys who beat him... and always came right back and got in contention again. There are players who have been crushed by a single dramatic loss and never recovered, but Norman has sustained more than his share and yet never let the losses beat him down.

Stacy handled this week's dramatic loss much better than her first one. I hope she doesn't end up having as many as Greg but, if she does, I hope she learns to handle them as well as he did. She's got too much talent to let this game crush her spirit.