It was at the 2012 Australian PGA Championship on the Sunshine Coast that I stumbled, drunk and pantless, into a Greg Norman press conference and, with a stubbie in hand and slurring, I asked the Shark if he thought Tiger Woods would win another major.
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For a long time I berated myself over the redundancy of the question, given that Norman had previously stated, on numerous occasons, that Tiger would not taste majors success again.
As such, Norman gave the question short shrift. "No," he replied bluntly, then focused on answering the serious questions posed by serious golf journalists, as I, the nobody from the local rag, was left to ruminate over my failure, while security escorted me away.
I had the attention, however briefly, of someone I worshipped in my youth, and I choked. (When Bob Tway holed out from the bunker to beat Norman at the 1986 PGA Championship, after the Shark imploded in the final round, I cried.)
Anyway, after years of unnecessary self-flagellation, the question that embarrassed me in front of my one-time hero, and my more illustrious peers, provided me with the grist for a column!
Perhaps I will also find a silver lining to having fallen, drunk, into my grandfather's grave, on to the coffin, at his funeral.
But I digress.
The Norman encounter reinforced my hypothesis that the greater someone's expertise on a subject, the more likely they will be wrong when making a prediction related to that expertise an empirical-based awakening born from Donald "Caligula" Trump's ascension to the throne.
In the permanent hungover state that accompanied my most recent spell living in Bangkok, I watched, bleary-eyed, as a procession of political pundits on CNN derided Trump's presidential campaign as a joke.
As with those yapping talking heads, Norman seemed utterly convinced he was right: Tiger was finished, no ifs or buts about it.
He was right to feel so confident. It had seemed more likely that Australia would hold David Warner to her bosom and stroke his head (there there, Davey boy) before Tiger added to his 14 majors.
And while that 15th major still eludes him, I would imagine Norman has altered his view, given the American's stunning form revival this year.
Here's a prediction: Tiger will absolutely win another major, no ifs or buts (or pants) about it.
