AUGUSTA, Ga.—Greg Norman’s opening 70 has the dreamers dreaming, wondering if destiny will pay a debt more than a decade in arrears.

Is there any nonwinner of the green jacket more deserving than the Shark, three times a Masters runner-up, three times victimized by surreal circumstance, always exceedingly gracious despite the depths of his despair?

Norman was saying Wednesday how, taken in sum, his unfathomable Masters meltdown of 1996 represents one of his prouder days in golf. He’d just chain-sawed his way to a finalround 78, surrendering the championship to Nick Faldo in a blaze of self-destruction. And yet he summoned the strength to answer for what had transpired, made himself accountable.

“When I came in here [the media room] in ’96, nobody expected me to come in here,” Norman said. “ . . . It wasn’t a great experience but you had to face the music and do what you had to do. It taught me a lot, and taught a lot of players a lot about how you conduct yourself after a victory is a lot different than the way you conduct yourself with a defeat, and it’s how you conduct yourself with a defeat [that] makes you inside.

“For me I don’t care what other people think of me, but how I feel inside. I know when I walked in here, I felt pretty darned good about myself when I left this press room. . . . I felt like I won the golf tournament. So that’s how you really look within yourself to become a better person.”

He makes the rounds these days with former tennis great Chris Evert at his side, theirs a marriage between two distinguished yet marred elite champions. Martina Navratilova was to Chrissy what Augusta’s been to theShark— the most difficult of conquests, the unyielding force. Is it any wonder, then, that they routinely relive their failures, their successes and more of their failures, volleying decades of memories and insights back and forth? Could either find a partner more understanding of their darkest days?

Perhaps it’s because Evert is the ideal sounding board and counsel that Norman is rescaling the heights at 54. He made his way back to Augusta by virtue of his tie for third at the British Open, a remarkable ascent given that his extensive business ventures afford him little time to play. He finds himself tied for 20th after 18 holes, five shots back, most assuredly a surmountable deficit, as he can well attest.

“The whole idea for any player is really get yourself off to a good, solid start,” Norman said. “I did that today. I had a lot of opportunities, really could have shot a nice, mid-60s score today. I didn’t. I’m not complaining.”

Norman in contention at 54? Why not? They threw out all the rules during the opening round at Augusta National, invited the unconventional into the mix.

No one wins the Par-3 Contest here and the Masters in the same year, yet there rests South African Tim Clark, three shots off the lead after a 68.

No one wins the Masters past age 46, but get a load of Augusta native Larry Mize, 50, sitting pretty with a 67, three shots ahead of Norman, cruel as that is. Remember, it was Mize’s 140- foot chip-in on the second playoff hole that beat Norman in ’87, the year after the Shark succumbed to the finalround 65 spun by a 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus.

Not since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 has a Masters first-timer solved the mystery of Augusta’s greens and slipped away with the green jacket. Well, say hello to John Merrick, whose one professional victory came at the 2006 Peek ’n Peak Classic. He made the acquaintance of the National with a solid 68.

It was, most certainly, an opening round of streaks. For the longest time the day belonged to Chad Campbell, who opened with five straight birdies and strung together four more on the back nine. He was two pars away from matching the lowest opening round in Masters history, a 63, shot by Norman in ’96, before backtracking to a 65 and a one-shot advantage over Jim Furyk and Hunter Mahan, both of whom had four-birdie runs.

It seemed that only Tiger Woods went with convention. Woods never has broken 70 in the opening round of a Masters, and a bogey on 18 prevented him from dipping beneath the threshold. He also missed makable putts on 16 and 17 after running birdies at 13-14-15.

“A score could have been had out there,” Woods said. “I was in position basically to shoot 4-5 under par.”

With the likes of Woods and Padraig Harrington (69) lurking, with three U. S. Ryder Cup players atop the leader board, common sense suggests Norman looms as a distinct long shot. He lacks the length off the tee and the youth in the legs prevalent within the field. His putting feel, he admits, isn’t as keen as it once was. But the way the Shark looks at it, his Augusta legacy is neither as dark nor as gnawing as many might believe.

“Of course, I would have loved to have won the golf tournament,” Norman said. “I didn’t win the golf tournament. But my name seems like it’s spoken about a lot of times when the Masters comes up, which is a good thing, as much as a bad thing sometimes.”