Three pars to start had Norris in decent fettle as he took aim towards the far end of the course. Then an errant lash of his driver darkened the mood.
An ugly spray from the tee screamed out of bounds on the right and he was forced to fish another ball from his bag.
Reset, compose yourself, avoid that fairway bunker on the left… what bunker? That bunker you’ve just landed in. The one you took two to get out of on Thursday.
At that stage, Norris was in the sand, three shots deep, and had 230-odd yards to the green. Not great, but not catastrophic. Not yet.
“What was it, the fourth shot? It caught the lip,” he explained. “Then I hit the same club and tried to do the same.”
He told BBC Sport that he tried to “chase something” and, three increasingly infuriated swipes later, he was still in the same bunker.
It was beginning to look like he might never emerge. Like this was his life now.
Finally, fuelled by the fury of a man who’s world was falling apart around him, he found just enough elevation to escape, his ball apologetically bounding 39 yards down the fairway.
Norris emerged behind it. A man who had probably lost track of how many times he’d hit the ball, what hole he was on, and even what his name was. “My mind went a little bit numb,” he said.
The records showed he had played seven. The pin was still the thick end of 200 yards away. Too far, as it turned out.
Norris’ approach settled 20-odd yards short left. But somehow he gathered himself to chip to seven feet and hole the putt.
“Shot 10. Ball holed. Double bogey or worse,” recorded the official Open shot tracker.
It was worse. Much, much worse.
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