IT SEEMED like deja vu all over again, in a manner of speaking, when Greg Norman lost a play off to Mark James for the Spanish Open at La Moraleja on Sunday. Yet the Shark's record in sudden death is not nearly as disastrous as might be imagined.

Granted, the Spanish loss came only two months after he and Ian Woosnam had been beaten by the Australian left hander, Richard Green, for the Desert Classic title in Dubai. But Norman won his last play off on the USPGA Tour when a chip in gave him a sudden death victory over Billy May fair and Nick Price in the 1995 World Series at Firestone.

His most celebrated play off failure on this side of the Atlantic was in the 1989 British Open at Royal Troon. In a three way battle with fellow Australian Wayne Grady and the eventual winner, Mark Calcavecchia, Norman drove into a fairway bunker that, by his own estimation couldn't be reached."

Events at Troon would be high lighted once more, four years later when, in the USPGA Championship at Inverness, Norman's misery in play offs reached historic proportions. By losing to Paul Azinger on that occasion, the Shark became only the second player in history to complete the game's most unwanted grand slam - play off defeats in all four major championships.

Meanwhile, prior to Dubai two months ago, Norman's only play off defeat on this side of the Atlantic was in that fateful Open at Troon. And of his 14 victories on the European Tour (including two British Opens), only one, the 1986 European Open, was achieved in sudden death.

In 11 US exercises in sudden death, he has won four and lost seven. It would be misleading, however, to draw direct conclusions from such figures, given that one of the game's toughest competitors, Gary Player, lost no fewer than 10 out of 13 play offs in the US, while the notoriously fragile Ed Sneed won three out of four.