Augusta, Ga. – Where does a major champion come from? Is the key maintaining a steady hand, even as the best player in the game stalks you? Or is it the lessons learned from a life in golf largely spent, not in cushy country clubs and the obscenely pampered cocoon of the PGA Tour, but rather in the Heartland, beating the bushes and waiting to catch a break?
“I thought those were the best days of my life, chicken wings and everything,” Zach Johnson said.
But on Sunday evening at Augusta National Golf Club, as defending champion Phil Mickelson slipped on a green jacket that made Johnson look like a 12-year-old preparing for Easter services, the standards for what represents a good day were changed irreparably. Shooting a 3-under-par 69 that tied for the day’s best round, Johnson made just the second victory of his PGA Tour career a special one, winning the 2007 Masters.
“I’m Zach Johnson and I’m from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That’s about it,” Johnson said. “I’m a normal guy. & I don’t even know what I shot.”
It was just Johnson’s third Masters appearance, and his four-day total of 1-over 289 matched the highest winning score in tournament history, a mark set by Sam Snead in 1954 and equaled by Jack Burke Jr. two years later. But that was still two shots better than Tiger Woods, who fell short in a bid for the 13th major championship win of his career, his fifth green jacket and a third straight triumph in golf’s biggest events.
Woods never had come from behind in any of his 12 previous major championships. When he birdied the second hole, he was actually in sole possession of the lead, but that wasn’t the be-all and end-all on a day when five players managed to inch out in front at various times.
The world’s top-ranked player gave up his advantage when he made bogey on No. 6. He drew to within a shot of Johnson
and then-co-leader Rory Sabbatini after an eagle on the 510-yard, par-5 13th, but Johnson made birdie on 14 and another on 16. When Woods missed a 10-foot birdie putt there minutes later, his chance at victory was essentially lost.
“I had a chance, but looking back over the week, I basically blew this tournament with two rounds where I had bogey-bogey finishes,” Woods said, referring to the conclusion of his first and third rounds. “You can’t afford to do that and win major championships.”
Those efforts were part of a week in which the bulked-up course and chilly, breezy weather combined to transform the tournament from its traditional high-powered birdiefest into more of a U.S. Open primer.
The scoring average for the week was 75.88, the fourth-highest in Masters history.
Whereas only Retief Goosen, who joined Woods and Sabbatini as the runners-up, shot under-par Saturday – and with a little bit of help from the lords of Augusta – there were 13 such rounds Sunday in much more palatable conditions.
“The pin locations were a little bit softer,” Woods said. “They gave us a break, which was nice.”
But Johnson wasn’t thinking about the flagsticks – or the leaderboard, for that matter. Even after he completed his round, Johnson still had to wait for Woods to finish his.
“I was sitting in the locker room waiting for Tiger to hit his second shot on 18,” Johnson said. “Before he hit it, I’m like, ‘He’s done stranger things.'”
But Woods never played on the Prairie Tour or the Hooters Tour, or needed to cobble together a consortium of 20-some husbands and wives to provide the financial backing to get his professional career off the ground.
“But that’s how I got better. Those mini-tours, a lot of good players have come through the ranks there. I feel fortunate to have played on those tours, too.”
Said Zach Johnson, a major champion from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
