AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Masters tournament involves around a hundred players taking a total of around 20,000 strokes. But in the end, it came down to just two: Louis Oosthuizen's astonishing albatross on 2, and Bubba Watson's ungodly pop-fly wedge shot from the woods on the second playoff hole. Both will be part of Masters lore for years, but only one won a green jacket.
The Masters that began with so many players finished up with just two, Oosthuizen and Bubba Watson, in a sudden-death playoff. Both players got good looks at a birdie on 18, with Watson barely missing a Masters-winning putt. Possibly rattled by that, Watson stuck his tee shot on 10 into the deep woods right of the green on 10, but then uncorked a shot not even a video game player could imagine: a straight-up wedge that landed within 15 feet for birdie. Needing two shots to win, Watson put his first putt close, and tapped in his second for his first major win.
Oosthuizen played a largely undistinguised round of golf, with one notable exception: a three-under albatross on the second hole that surely ranks as one of the greatest shots in Masters history. The 260-yard shot was enough to keep the field at bay for most of the round, and enough to give Oosthuizen a little room to waver through the course of the round. He steadied himself on the back nine, bringing home the same -10 that he'd staked himself to on the second hole.
Once again, Watson found himself in a playoff for a major championship. In 2010, he fell to Martin Kaymer in the PGA Championship. This year, there would be no such fade.
The conventional wisdom was that Watson would either shoot in the low sixties or the high seventies, no middle ground. And indeed, he seemed on the verge of losing control right from the start, griping at the air en route to bogeying the very first hole. But he settled down, surrendering only one stroke the rest of the way and putting on a spectacular four-birdie run from 13 to 16. That was enough to put him 10-under and into a tie for the lead, a tie that would hold up into the playoff.
Phil Mickelson, the favorite coming into the day, played 17 solid holes at a level good enough to stay in the hunt, if not own it. The problem was the fourth, where he piledrove a shot into the side of a grandstand and then needed two righthanded shots (Mickelson is lefthanded) to get it free of the dense jungle growth. He carded a triple-bogey 7, falling from eight-under to five-under. And although he wouldn't bogey another shot, he left too many putts too short. He finished right where he started, at -8, staring up an impassable two-stroke incline at the leaders.
Other highlights included two aces at 16, by Bo Van Pelt and Adam Scott, and Van Pelt's astonishing 8-under run to tie a Masters record. Lee Westwood didn't do his usual major fade, but his 4-under day to get to -8 simply wasn't enough. And Matt Kuchar and 54-hole leader Peter Hanson both took turns at the lead, but couldn't hold. And Tiger Woods? A 2-over 74 to finish a dismal +5.
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