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Woods, Mickelson still the stars of Augusta

AUGUSTA, GA. — For three rounds, the Masters was vanilla, and sugar-free vanilla at that. There was no buzz to speak of, no rush of emotions, nothing that would make a person reach for something that might calm the nerves.

All that changed Sunday. I know this is going to come as a bit of a shock, but the change came about because of two gentlemen, one who goes by the nickname of Tiger and the other who swings from the wrong side of the ball.

Angel Cabrera won the tournament on the second playoff hole, and he deserves every bit of praise for holding it together while the people around him fell apart. While left-handed Phil Mickelson and surgically repaired Tiger Woods traded birdies and heartburn, Cabrera hummed along like a Volvo. OK, maybe a cranky Volvo.

There is something about seeing either Woods or Mickelson making a charge, but when they’re charging like a pair of hitched horses, it’s electric. And it put a charge under Cabrera, Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry, the sentimental pick who had been plodding around Augusta National Golf Club with a long string of pars until the tournament started chugging Red Bull.

“I saw Tiger and Phil going crazy out there,” Perry said.

“You could hear it out there,” Campbell said. “They had it going.”

There are lots of people who have a bad case of Tiger fatigue, and some of them are a bit tired of Mickelson’s gee-whiz act too. But it’s hard to argue against two things:

The tournament and the players at the top of the leaderboard came alive Sunday when Woods and Mickelson started playing like men possessed.

When Woods and Mickelson faded down the stretch, the quality of the golf eventually faded too. The excitement didn’t, but the quality did. It wasn’t long before we started seeing wayward drives that landed in sand traps, sat on pine needles or had their view blocked by trees.

Was that due to the absence of the two-headed Phil-Tiger monster? Or simply nerves? No one will know for sure.

We do know that before all that, Augusta was as alive as a golf course possibly can be.

Mickelson tied a Masters front-nine record with a 6-under-par 30. He birdied six of the first eight holes. Woods, who had played three beige rounds, started rolling in putts, too, the most dramatic for an eagle on the eighth hole. The irony, he said, was that he had been awful on the practice range before the round. And it had nothing to do with his surgically repaired knee.

Both golfers had started the day seven shots off the lead. At the turn, Mickelson was one shot behind Perry, Woods four.

Buttoned-down Augusta was rocking.

On the par-3 12th hole, Mickelson’s tee shot hit short of the green and rolled into Rae’s Creek. The ensuing double bogey dropped him to 8 under.

“A terrible swing,” he said.

On 13, both men made birdie putts.

Both made birdie on 15, though Mickelson misread a makeable eagle putt.

As the two made their way to the 16th green, the fans cheered long and hard. Greatness was walking past, and they knew it. It was as if the Masters had been saving itself all week for this. Woods knocked in a 4-foot putt for birdie to move into a tie for second at 10 under with Mickelson, a stroke behind Perry.

Augusta was out of its mind.

It was a bulldozer of a story line: The two dueling stars would trample everyone on the way to a final showdown. But as it turned out, the story line was written on tracing paper. Mickelson pushed a 5-foot birdie putt on No. 17 and settled for par, then bogeyed No. 18. Woods bogeyed the last two holes.

Ever seen an unknotted balloon fly around a room? It was kind of like that.

“It was a very emotional day because it’s up and down, up and down, a lot of highs and lows,” Mickelson said. “The crowd, it made the highs even higher, and the moans made the lows even lower, and it was just an emotional day.”

For all involved.

Perry will be remembered for a lot of things. That little hitch in his swing. The way he navigated Augusta with such calm presence for most of four rounds. The sweet 8-iron to within a foot on the 16th hole. But mostly, and unfortunately, the 48-year-old Kentuckian will be remembered for the way his game started throwing off indispensable pieces as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.

With two holes left, it was his tournament to win. He bogeyed both holes, hitting his tee shot on 18 into a trap.

Cabrera, Perry and Campbell all struggled in sudden death. A bogey on the first playoff hole caused Campbell to die suddenly.

On the second playoff hole, Perry’s second shot flew far left. Cabrera’s stopped within 10 feet of the hole. For all intents and purposes, the green jacket was his.

“If this is the worst thing that happens to me, I can live with it,” Perry said. “I really can. Great players get it done, and Angel got it done.”

The Masters title will go well with Cabrera’s 2007 U.S. Open victory.

“This is the Masters,” he said. “It’s a course that you can do a lot of birdies, a lot of bogeys. A lot of magical things happen.”

This magical thing was Tiger- and Phil-aided.