Masters Report: Serious Business

Snedeker seemed on top of the world at times last week. Photo: Dom Furore

To quickly recap, Tiger holed more big putts at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship than most tour pros make in three years. He came east and struggled on the Bermuda greens at Bay Hill but still found it in himself to sink that bomb at the buzzer to beat Bart Bryant. He lost the WGC-CA event at Doral because he was unusually inconsistent from inside eight feet. Last week, perhaps the best reader of greens ever to stalk this earth missed with uncommon frequency to the left and right.

When Phil Mickelson won his first Masters in 2004, Woods' poor putting kept him out of the mix. The problem on that occasion was his pace, which was also the case when he finished second to Zach Johnson last April. It sure sounds ridiculous, but Tiger's putter has made a fifth emerald blazer something of an elusive commodity. The good news is, he won't have to take any more Grand Slam questions for a while.

For the bad news, see the good news. "I learned my lesson there with the [media]," Woods quipped, referring to his proactive position on winning all four majors in the same calendar year. "I'm not going to say anything." He finished alone in second place, three strokes behind Immelman, whose tee shot into the water at the par-3 16th made the final outcome look closer than it was. Still, as opportunities go, this Masters falls between could have and should have on Tiger's short list of didn't-get-it-dones.

Until jarring a no-way monster from about 60 feet on the 11th hole Sunday, Woods' longest successful birdie attempt was a 12-footer at the 10th Saturday. In the final round, he missed from eight feet at the third and three feet at the fourth, but it was the steer-job pull from six feet at the 13th that ultimately slammed his door. Tiger had escaped tree trouble with his second shot and spun a wedge just below the pin with his third, then picked an awful time to miss the hole completely and walk away with a discouraging par.

Two-time winner Mickelson had more scary moments than subpar rounds. Photo: Dom Furore

With Paul Casey (79) out of it early and Stewart Cink alternating good runs with bad ones, second-year tour pro Brandt Snedeker and easy-to-miss Steve Flesch would join Woods as Immelman's primary threats, which takes us back to where this whole thing started. The Augusta National once so accommodating to final-nine heroics remains nowhere to be found. If someone assembled a team to scatter across the ballyard and measure gallery roars from beginning to end, the 2008 Masters would have ranked somewhere near the bottom, and not because the patrons have gotten quieter.

Here's all you really need to know: Immelman began Sunday with a two-shot lead over Snedeker and won despite a closing 75 -- the highest final-round score ever by a Masters champ, matched only by Arnold Palmer's finish in 1962. What's crazier is that Immelman took a six-stroke lead to the 15th tee, at which point he was one over par for the day. Yes, a 15-mile-per-hour breeze whipped around the grounds all day, gusting into the high 20s when Mother Nature felt the urge, but this was the Masters, and the Masters defines greatness in very demonstrative terms.

Woods played lousy by his remarkable standards, but his lousy is better than almost everyone else's good. Immelman got it done. Sort of. Kind of. "I've played with very few golfers who can manage their emotions, manage their swing and manage that golf course that well," Snedeker said of his final-pairing counterpart. "He missed some short putts, and I'm sure he'll tell you he didn't putt great today, but if he had, [the final outcome] wouldn't have been close."