Norman: KO was my fault

Greg Norman admitted he had only himself to blame after being disqualified at the BMW Asian Open in Shanghai.

The Australian legend threw away a strong third-round position, having progressed from his five-under-par overnight score to a useful eight-under, before he dropped his ball outside the drop zone on the 17th hole.

Norman was left to watch England’s Simon Dyson stretch away at the top of the leaderboard, but had no complaints with the ruling as his mistake was picked up by the television cameras.

He said: “I just took an illegal drop. I should have gone back to the drop zone and I didn’t. I quite honestly didn’t notice it was yellow (line) and just treated it as red. And I teed off on 18 and that was the end. It was an unfortunate mistake.

“I was just totally oblivious. It was a good day up until that point. I guess the rules are there. I’m fine (with the television). I don’t have a problem with that at all. I prefer to learn by my mistakes.

“Again, nobody notified me. No-one in the gallery, no marshals notified me that it was wrong. I then walked to the next tee and somebody should have stopped me. It didn’t happen in America and it didn’t happen here. But I can’t blame anybody except myself.”