Golfing order was restored at Augusta National on Sunday. Tiger Woods is Masters champion, for a fourth time, and back on top of the world rankings.
Suddenly all the early season talk of the ”Fab Four” — Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els — is all sounding a bit hollow.
Dreams of a classic year with the four best golfers in the world battling it out for the majors had been well and truly shattered even before the final round began.
Woods had put on such a stunning show in the third round that everyone else but Chris DiMarco was left as a bit player on the final day as the two went head-to-head in one of the most dramatic last rounds in Masters history.
Nine holes of the third round were played on Saturday, and the homeward nine on Sunday morning.
Woods began on Saturday six shots adrift of DiMarco. Saturday night, as darkness closed in, he had cut the lead to four with a birdie, birdie finish.
On Sunday morning, those four shots had been transformed into a three-shot lead thanks to four straight birdies.
It was impossible to live with Woods in that sort of form.
DiMarco gave his all, pulling level with Woods on the 72nd hole to force a play-off, but Woods prevailed.
Last year, Singh snatched the world number-one ranking with a stunning nine victories, including the PGA Championship.
A win at the start of this season, at the Sony Open, showed Singh (42) was far from finished. He was on form.
Mickelson played himself into the ”Fab Four” with his victory at Augusta last year to rid himself of the tag of being the best golfer never to have won a major.
He nearly won the US Open, just being pipped by Retief Goosen.
This season, he arrived at Augusta with three US Tour wins already under his belt.
Els could have won four majors last year and ended up with nothing, but with back-to-back wins on the European Tour earlier this year, he was clearly in form.
When Woods finally won his first stroke-play tournament for 18 months on the US Tour at the Buick Invitational, the Tiger was back.
His revised swing was starting to click in. The Masters was set to be produce vintage golf. The Fab Four were about to have a shoot-out.
But it all went wrong.
Els managed to make the cut — just.
On Sunday, he went out with the first group, paired with former Master champion Craig Stadler.
When he slumped off the 72nd green, he was 10 over par and a mind-numbing 22 off the winning score.
Singh and Mickelson stayed around the top 10 on the leaderboard, but never once did they threaten to stop Woods from his mission to overtake Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major titles.
Sunday’s victory gave Woods nine — and he’s still only 29.
Nicklaus, who played his final Masters round on Saturday, dismissed suggestions of a ”Fab Four”.
”He [Woods] is still obviously the dominant player, he got so much talent. Like anybody who has dominated the game, maybe myself, Tiger doesn’t have to play his best to win.
”But when he plays his best, he’s going to probably win,” said Nicklaus.
Sunday night proved Nicklaus correct.
DiMarco could only agree.
”I went out and shot 68 around here on a Sunday, and 12-under is usually good enough to win. I just was playing against Tiger Woods,” said DiMarco ruefully.
Thomas Bjorn was not surprised.
”Tiger is Tiger, and when he gets on those kind of runs then we never know really what is going to happen. I’ve seen him play the best golf of his life probably in Pebble Beach in 2000 and I know what he’s capable of doing,” said the Dane.
”I’ve also beaten him but that’s a different story. I know what the guy is capable of, and when he plays like that, you’ve just got to enjoy watching,” he added.
Woods has been warning that his revised swing was not simply to get him back to where he was in 2000 and 2001, when he took golf to a level never seen before, but to even higher levels.
The Tiger is back — and solo. — Sapa-AFP