Why DiMarco will rue his dog day

A STRANGE roar, in parts horror and delight, filled the air around Augusta National’s 18th green last Sunday evening before ever Tiger Woods and Chris DiMarco came into view. As the only characters who mattered in the 69th Masters prepared to fire out of the chute and up the final, terrifying hole the giant leaderboard ahead had made a critical alteration; Tiger had dropped another shot.

"Oh. My. God!" cried the masses. Only one stroke in it now. Think what must have gone through DiMarco’s head when, within minutes of bogeying 17, Woods then pulled the head off his putt for the green jacket on 18. Sure, he won’t admit it, but thoughts of destiny, perhaps? Of fate? Thoughts like ‘I have him’ and ‘How can I not win after what I’ve been through?’ You couldn’t have blamed him. DiMarco didn’t need a golf cart to whizz back down to the 18th tee for the play-off. Such was his momentum he could have flown there himself. Most of the rest of us stayed put; protecting our spots as witnesses to the first great Tiger Choke.

Not.

Augusta’s hard luck stories. It’s funny how quickly we forget. Len Mattiace would have won the Masters in 2003 had Mike Weir not forced a play-off with a nerveless 7-foot putt for par on 18. Weir got to hang out in the champions’ locker room last week - ringside for Singh versus Mickelson - courtesy of his bogey to Mattiace’s double in the play-off. They both shot 281 for the week, 7-under par. Unless you’re a human sponge you probably couldn’t recall those numbers, but you can be certain that DiMarco knows them. When he gets around to torturing himself over Sunday - he shouldn’t but the chances are he will in time - he’ll think of 2003. At 12-under, he’d have won by four clear shots.

There’s not many past Masters he won’t think about. If he only had his 68 in the final round last year instead of last week then Mickelson would still be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders as golf’s best player never to have won a major. Woods finished 12-under in the 2002 Masters and won by three. In 61 of the 69 Masters 12-under would have been a winning score without any need for extra holes. DiMarco could spend the rest of his life telling people how Sunday was different.

It’s quite a claim, but it was one of the great Masters, not just for the re-emergence of Woods but for the steely heroism of his rival. DiMarco’s temperament has long been questioned and nowhere has it been more doubtful than around Augusta when the pressure was on. He took a three-shot lead into Sunday where 27 holes lay in wait, slept fitfully and resumed play a little after 8am. In 22 anxious minutes his advantage was gone. In 31 minutes Woods was ahead. DiMarco shot 41 for the back nine of his third round. Bobby Jones had an expression for what he did. When complimented once on a decent round, the co-founder of Augusta National immediately found fault with himself. "Yes," he said, "but I finished like a yellow dog."

But DiMarco was a dog of a different kind on Sunday afternoon.

Woods’ ball-striking in rounds two and three had been extraordinary, everything he had hoped it would become when employing Hank Haney, the hi-tech Texan, to remodel his swing a year ago. Records we thought would never again be matched came under threat in a blizzard of low scoring. Woods tied Steve Pate for most consecutive birdies with seven and also tied his 1997 record of low middle rounds for the Masters (66-65). In a 31-hole stretch on Saturday and Sunday morning Woods was 15-under par and all those birdie putts were within 15 feet. It was unforgiving and inspirational golf. Just like old times.

But then DiMarco started nipping at his heels.

It should not have been a contest. Woods had a three-shot lead going into the final round and one of the best known statistics in golf is that Woods never loses when he leads after 54 holes. What chance had DiMarco? Not only had his spirit been broken in the morning, but he’d also been belittled off the tee at the first hole of the final round, his ball landing 61 yards shy of Woods’s 344-yard bullet. For the rest of the day DiMarco was so far behind his rival he couldn’t have out-driven him had he put his ball in the back of a taxi-cab.

That’s the way of it now that Woods has gone large again. He used a 460cc driver with a 45-inch graphite shaft. DiMarco used a peashooter. Earlier in the week where Woods smashed a 4-iron pin-high on the 575-yard par-5 second hole, DiMarco was short with a 3-wood. On the dangerous 11th, Woods hit the green with a wedge, DiMarco made it with a 3-iron. On the 15th, another par-5, Woods was on with a drive and a 9-iron where DiMarco failed to make it with a drive and a 3-iron.

But this isn’t the Woods of old. At least not yet. For the last 17 holes on Sunday DiMarco was four shots better than Woods and it could, should, have been more. As sure a putter as there is in the game, he narrowly missed five putts from inside 10ft in the first 13 holes in the final round. In the game of what might have been those near-misses rank as high on the frustration-scale as his chip that lipped out on 18. It was a tournament of inches, the Masters of 2005.

Among his rivals on tour, there are differing opinions on Woods’ victory. Fred Funk’s take on his stumble up 17 and 18 is that he will never dominate the game the way he once did, but Joe Ogilvie says that all that Ponte Vedra sunshine has got to the old man’s head. "Mentally, he’s better than everyone else," said Ogilvie of Woods. "Physically he’s better than everyone else. He’s got the best short game, the best iron game. He doesn’t have to swing his best. If he ever starts hitting the fairways, the game’s over."

Of the 50 players who made the cut at Augusta, Woods ranked 49th in driving accuracy yet still won. Ogilvie’s point, therefore, is well made. If Haney’s methods produce the ultimate swing, then the world had better watch out all over again.

It may have been an untypical Tiger Sunday but he won’t mind about the quality for it has always been about the quantity with Woods. Lest we forget what he is about, this is his ninth full season on tour and he has now won nine majors. At the end of his ninth full season, Jack Nicklaus had won eight. At the age of 29 he is halfway to Nicklaus’s total which now looks reachable again after his 34-month famine.

The brave DiMarco was his only challenger last week. Second in his last two majors the Floridian is now being talked of for a Shark Slam but it is a Slam of a different kind, and how to stop it, that will exercise the minds of Woods’ missing rivals when round two begins at the US Open at Pinehurst in June.