AUGUSTA: Tiger, Lefty deliver in Sunday showdown

AUGUSTA, Ga. — So often in sports the action fails to live up to the hype. The promise of greatness becomes a distant memory, the attention is fleeting and the results forgettable. Ask the BCS.

When the pairing was introduced Sunday at Augusta, though, the much ballyhooed showdown between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson was everything everyone hoped. It was a shootout that delivered magic and memories, even if it did not deliver a championship.

It was of little surprise that the Wood-Mickelson pairing created galleries 20-plus deep at every available vantage point at Augusta National Golf Club.

If there was going to be greatness on a Chamber of Commerce Sunday here, it was coming from this group, even if they started the day seven shots off the lead.

Amid the hopes of the patrons and themselves they highlighted a weekend where the roars returned to the Masters. It was a lot to ask, but who better to make this Masters Sunday one of those Masters Sundays — like 1986 or ’97 or ’04.

And they delivered. And they failed.

These two intense competitors who have been at best cordial during their at times icy rivalry delivered an epic slugfest that sucked the energy from the course — and ultimately from each of them.

“It was a battle. It was a struggle all day,” Woods said. “My number was 11.”

Neither Phil or Tiger got to 11 under, but it was not from a lack of trying. In fact, their inability to get to 11 under may have been from trying too hard for too long. The climb, filled with emotional twists and swings, overtook them both, leaving them tumbling toward the finishing line. They each made bogey on the 18th, Phil finishing fifth at 10 under with Tiger a shot back in a four-way tie for sixth.

“Whatever Phil was doing, if I kept doing what I was supposed to do and got to 11,” Woods said, “I thought I had a chance.”

We all did, especially after a captivating front nine where the game’s two best shot-makers put on a two-man two-step of “Can you top this?”

“It was a fun front nine,” Mickelson said.

Fun? Rummy is fun. The front nine was fundamentally fantastic. Fun? This was the game’s two best playing their games at their best.

They were the golfing thoroughbreds that they were billed to be, galloping through the front nine as the rest of the field waited impatiently.

The Wood-Mickelson group was 9 under Sunday at the turn, combining for seven birdies and an eagle. The rest of the top nine finishers combined to play the front nine at 5 under.

Woods, a four-time winner here and a 14-time major champion, went out in 33, using an eagle on the eighth to set off a roar that caught the attention of everyone this side of Rossville — including eventual Masters champ Angel Cabrera.

“When Tiger and Phil were making a move,” Cabrera said, “I knew I had to make a move for myself.”

Still, eagle or no and pedigree aside, Tiger was relegated to mostly a supporting role on a front nine that Mickelson turned into Masters lore.

The mercurial Mickelson was on the far side of fabulous. He matched the Masters mark with a 30 on the front.

His birdies ranged from the traditional to the sublime — his hooked approach from the rough to a foot on No. 7 may be the lasting image of this Masters. His pars bounced from ordinary to ornate.

Through the first 11 holes as he got to 10 under, Mickelson’s will remained as steady as at any point before and his nerve was unyielding.

Then it happened — the Mickelson moment that he had convinced us was not in the realm of possibility today.

A half-hearted 9-iron on the par-3 12th broke Lefty's heart. His tee shot spun back into Rae's Creek, leading to a double bogey that halted his charge and all-but-ended his hope of winning a third green jacket.

He described it as a “terrible swing,” and it led to a crippling 5 that deflated his spirit and derailed his runaway train.

Woods’ downfall was later in the round but just as fatal. After he got to 10 under with a short birdie on No. 16, he made a bogey on each of the final two holes, spraying drives and removing himself from contention.

It was a great book with a tepid ending, one where the conclusion left you fondly recalling chapters three through nine.

But don’t blame the authors, not this time. This was more exhaustion than a lack of execution, fatigue rather than failure.

“We were trying to make birdies to catch the leaders,” Mickelson said as he left the 18th green, “I don’t think we were paying attention to what the other was doing.”

Well, you were the only ones.