Jay Mariotti Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Please resist any temptation to call it anticlimactic, a multi-car pileup won by the least-damaged vehicle, a classic movie with a clumsy ending, a spectacular piece of drama ultimately doused by Rae's Creek and sabotaged by mental blunders. Yes, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods gave us four vintage hours in the Octagon, if the stuffy fathers at Augusta National allow UFC slang. Yes, they were followed by 99.9 percent of the patrons, with only friends and family types watching those actually leading the tournament in a scene both sad and surreal.

And, yes, Mickelson oh-so-predictably wilted after a historic front nine while Woods somehow lost his way when the usual clinch hold was expected.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He was in the weeds more than he was in the hunt, cussing and fussing and throwing his iron so angrily that he almost beheaded his cute Tiger club cover. "(Bleep)," said Eldrick Woods, more than once. But if Tiger is finished at the 2009 Masters, we can guarantee he'll be back to collect additional green clothing at some point, even if he has won only once at Augusta National since 2002 (slump!).

"Anything you need to work on?" Woods was asked Saturday after another round of misadventures.

"Yeah. I need to eat right now," he said.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The winds tend to howl and hurl dust across the prairies of West Texas, where not every golfer is a washed-up pro trying to impress Rene Russo at a driving range. Chad Campbell grew up playing in tricky gusts much like those at Augusta National, in a second round worthy of wind turbines on every hole and intense prayer at Amen Corner. As Tiger Woods predicted, the conditions did change, from laughably accommodating to punitive.

If only Woods was as good a golfer Friday as he was a meteorologist.

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