Faldo, "Nick" (Nicholas A.)
Golf
b. July 18, 1957, Welwyn Garden City, England
Faldo took six golf lessons when he was thirteen and played his first round at fourteen. He won a golf scholarship to the University of Houston in 1976 but left after only ten weeks and joined the European Professional Golfers' Association.
Although Faldo set a record by winning 140,751 pounds on the European tour, sportswriters were referring to him sarcastically as "Nick Fold-o" for his failures in major tournaments. He decided to change his swing entirely and went to work in the spring of 1985, hitting as many as 1,500 practice balls a day while working with an instructor.
Faldo won his first major tournament, the British Open, in 1987, shooting a 279 at Muirfield in Scotland. The following year, he and Curtis Strange tied for the lead in the U. S. Open, but Strange won the 18-hole playoff, 71-75. Scott Hoch and Faldo tied in the 1989 Masters, but this time Faldo won a sudden-death playoff by shooting a birdie on the second hole.
In 1990, Faldo hired the first full-time woman caddie on the pro tour, Fanny Sunesson. He won two majors that year, repeating in the Masters by winning another playoff, over Ray Floyd, and shooting a 270 to take the British Open by 5 strokes. Faldo won the British Open for a third time in 1992 with a 272.
Undoubtedly his most dramatic victory came in the 1996 Masters. Trailing Greg Norman by six shots entering the final round, Faldo shot a brilliant, 5-under-par 67 to win his sixth major championship.