The situation left us with two tournaments on Sunday. It was Tiger and Phil over here with the crowds, and the lurkers over there.
Tiger and Phil certainly put on a show when they went off with the entire population of a small nation in their entourage. Mickelson's front-side 30, six under, tied a record. Tiger's eagle putt on No. 8 kept him close. But what began with roars was too good to be true.
The one thing Phil had to do on the tee at the treacherous 12th was take the water out of play, no matter what. But he hit a sorry 9-iron that trickled back into Rae's Creek for a double bogey, then gunched two short putts, one for an eagle at 15 and one for a birdie at 17.
He'd made everything on the front, so it must have been destiny's payback. Couldn't have been choking on a green jacket, right?
All of Phil's mistakes should have quickened Tiger's step, but as soon as he got to 10 under he bogeyed 17 and 18 after poor drives. His 68 lost the individual duel to Mickelson's 67.
Tiger Woods (top) and Phil Mickelson suffer through low points on Friday before Sunday's pairing./Photos: AP
The thing about the other tournament on Sunday is that it brought to mind the '79 playoff for some of us. It was the playoff where Fuzzy Zoeller beat Ed Sneed and Tom Watson in sudden death, although Fuzzy had been the last guy on anyone's mind, nobody you'd seen on the telecast. And you won't be seeing him in the Masters again: Fuzzy made this his last, and Gary Player did the same after playing his 52nd. Fuzzy bowing out must have come as a disappointment to blogger Condi Rice, who was in attendance and called him "another favorite of mine." Who knew?
Cabrera wouldn't go away, even though all you saw him do was chew gum and give Perry a thumbs up for Kenny's solid play. Meanwhile, Cabrera was primarily remembered as the chunky guy who chain-smoked cigarettes and won the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont.
But after he survived the Roberto De Vicenzo scorecard-signing thing -- the first for an Argentine who tied for the low 72 -- Cabrera won the playoff over Perry and Campbell. Cabrera flailed around in the trees like an 18-handicapper on 18, the first playoff hole, before making a par. Then came a knockdown 4-iron to No. 10, the second playoff hole, that made Kenny Perry even older. It also made Cabrera, 39, the seventh player during the Tiger era to win more than one major, joining Phil, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Mark O'Meara and Padraig Harrington, who picked up two of his three during Tiger's absence.
So yet again Tiger hasn't come from behind in the last round to win a major. In the end at Augusta, he just didn't play well enough over the four days to deserve a fifth green jacket -- and Mickelson's shirt, by the way, didn't deserve it either.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AUGUSTA NATIONAL
Have you been lucky enough to attend the Masters? We're looking for your first impressions of that initial visit, whether it was this year or as far back as the inaugural tournament in 1934. Write to us at editor@golfdigest.com, and we'll include selected comments as part of our 2010 Masters preview.
- Text Size:
- Small Text
- Medium Text
- Large Text
