OK, it looked like a choke. When you bogey four of the first six holes on the final day of a major championship — as Greg Norman did at the start of Sunday’s British Open — it’s more than gale-force wind and rough you could lose a small car in.

It especially looks like a choke when you rally from that inglorious start to hold a one-stroke lead with nine holes left only to lose by six shots.

And certainly no one knows how to throw away majors on the last day better than Greg Norman. After losing to Padraig Harrington on Sunday, he’s now 1-7 when owning at least a share of the lead going into the final round of a major.

If we all didn’t like the guy so darn much he’d have become a verb by now every time an athlete or politician blew a lead. We’d write that the guy Norman-ed it, no other explanation needed.

But the shaky Shark deserves a break on this one. Mostly because he’s 53 years old, hasn’t won a tournament of any kind in 10 years and really just showed up at Royal Birkdale this past week to continue his honeymoon with tennis legend Chris Evert and to loosen up for the upcoming Senior British Open.

As Norman noted Friday, “My mind wants to play, but my body doesn’t want to practice.”

Then again, would you want to practice golf if you owned two jets, two yachts, reportedly had $500 million in the bank and a new celebrity wife?

Who’s got time to practice golf with a life like that?

(Well, other than Tiger Woods.)

The thing is, the simple fact that Norman hung around the leaderboard all four days helped most of us forget Tiger wasn’t in the field. The Shark swung his mighty driver, left almost no putt short and flashed his charming Aussie smile as if we were back in 1988 rather than 2008.

Or as Evert told ESPN earlier in the week of the old days when Norman was the No. 1 golfer on the planet for 331 weeks: “When you turned on the TV you watched him. I watched maybe a little bit of (Seve) Ballesteros, a little bit of Jack Nicklaus. But I think Greg had that charisma.”

And at the time Norman was becoming a household name, charisma was becoming most of the financial formula for fabulously wealthy athletes. It made mega-millionaires of all-time champions such as Michael Jordan and sometime champions such as Norman and Andre Agassi.

In fact, Norman has made so much money through his business dealings that he is apparently coughing up $103 million in a divorce settlement to his first wife in order to begin his marriage to Evert. The recent Norman-Evert wedding, by the way, reportedly cost more than $2 million, which should somewhat subdue the international sorrow out there over his British Open fade.

As for Harrington, he’s continuing a quite unique trait among the three winners of majors. First came Masters winner Trevor Immelman, who had a benign tumor removed from his diaphram just four months before Augusta.

Then came Tiger’s knee problems at the U.S. Open. Now Harrington comes from behind to win his second straight Claret Jug just two weeks after injuring his left wrist on an impact bag and just five days after tweaking it.

Harrington even said Sunday afternoon that he thought the injury helped him win.

“It took all the pressure and stress and expectation away from my game,” he said. “It helped me deflect so much from coming back and defending. It was like coming in fresh.”

So when the PGA Championship begins next month, just look for somebody who’s recently been sick or injured and bet him to win.

Just don’t expect a fresh start to Norman’s career. He’s 53 with a new wife, two jets, two yachts and all those business interests (just in case you’ve forgotten over the past 3 paragraphs).

“The legs weren’t working as well on the middle holes,” said the Shark. “Maybe I let it get away and maybe I didn’t. But I don’t feel that bad.”

As they headed up the 18th fairway on Sunday, Harrington enjoying a four-shot lead, the winner turned to Norman and said, “I’m sorry it’s not your story that’s going to be told.”

Actually, whether he feels bad or not, this became a Shark’s tale we’ve all heard too many times before.

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