In shocking turn, Woods loses a lead --- and a major

Tiger Woods took the lead right on schedule Sunday afternoon and seemed poised to roll to his fifth Masters victory. But, somehow, the best closer in golf got stuck in neutral among the azaleas and ended the day feeling the sting of second place. 

By Dave Shedloski, PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Less than an hour after beginning his final round in the 71st Masters Tournament, Tiger Woods had already nosed his way into first place. Wisdom, history and common sense all said the tournament was over, because Woods never, ever, relinquishes a Sunday lead in a major championship.

Never. Ever.

Until April 8, 2007.

Never say never again.

Woods is the most prolific winner of his -- or any -- era and one of the most clutch performers in sports today. But somehow the No. 1 player in the world got his karma wires crossed and found his supercharged game stuck in neutral, and for once he had to march up the 18th hole at Augusta National Golf Club flushed with the anguish of knowing he wasn't, this one time, going to be the victor.

While several players, including resourceful winner Zach Johnson, made a move on a less forbidding but still formidable set-up at Augusta National, a closing even-par 72 was all Woods could muster on a cool and sunny Easter Sunday. His first Masters as a professional without a sub-par round relegated Woods to a tie for second place with Retief Goosen and Rory Sabbatini and ended his bid for a second run of four consecutive major titles.

Other than an eagle on the 13th that had the makings of igniting a Tiger rally, there were few flashes of the Woods brilliance that always seems to bloom in big events. Instead, he broke a 4-iron against a tree, dunked a ball in the water at 15, and missed a handful of key birdie opportunities down the stretch. His week was summed up -- and officially over -- at the par-4 17th, when his approach from the fairway landed woefully short into the front bunker. He turned to caddie Steve Williams and blurted, "What the hell just happened?"

Turns out the breeze shifted with his Nike ball in mid-air. Did not the golfing gods know who had struck the shot? Apparently, Augusta National doesn't always play favorites, and this week it had none, really, given the 75.881 scoring average the field assembled against the green granite goblin.

Said Stuart Appleby, the third-round leader who accompanied Woods in the day's final pairing and finished tied for seventh, "The course was so much bigger than even him."

Johnson, who birdied three of the last six holes, fired a 3-under 69 for a 289 total, 1 over par, which tied the highest winning score in Masters history. Woods, at 291, suffered his fifth major in 41 starts in which he could not better par. He hasn't won any of those. Neither has Woods overcome a third-round deficit in grand slam tournaments, even one as slim as Appleby clung to and which he quickly vacated to Retief Goosen with an opening double bogey.

So there was Woods, after a birdie at the par-5 second hole, alone in first place. It lasted all of 20 minutes. The lead would change six times among five men, including Sabbatini, who wrested it from Woods with an amazing eagle at No. 8, until Johnson seized the advantage for good. Woods, however, faded to as many as four back, after bogeys at Nos. 6 and 10, and a charge never developed as he battled a temperamental golf swing and a taxing layout.

"It was frustrating in the sense that I just made a couple of mistakes out there today," said Woods, 31, who had come in as the reigning British Open and PGA champion. "The golf course was playing very difficult. You just had to keep plodding along and give yourself as many good chances as you possibly could, because they were hard to come by."

Too hard. He converted only 10 birdies all week, fewest among the top nine finishers. What's more, twice, in rounds 1 and 3, he finished with consecutive bogeys.

"Looking back over the week I basically blew this tournament with two rounds where I had bogey-bogey finishes," he lamented.

Still, almost everyone expected Woods to eventually turn bricks into birdies. Johnson admitted he didn't exhale until Woods' second shot into 18 somehow evaded the bottom of the cup for a tying eagle. "He's done stranger things," Johnson pointed out.

"I've seen too many highlight reels where he's done things out of nowhere," Appleby said of his Orlando neighbor. "It was just meant to be Zach's day. Tiger probably played the worst today out of anybody, because he has so many extra gears. But he was fighting the course, and it was tough for him. It was hard work, and he knew it, too. He just couldn't milk enough out of his round."

The stars seemed aligned for a Woods victory, too. Had he won, he'd have owned five Masters titles, 57 PGA TOUR titles and 13 major championships. It just so happens that when Jack Nicklaus, the man Woods pursues relentlessly in golf history, won the 1975 Masters, he collected his fifth green jacket, his 13th major title and his 57th TOUR title.

Spooky.

Sometimes destiny loses track of itself. But no one was complaining, at least not any of his peers who watched Woods finish second in a major for just the third time -- 16 behind Nicklaus, in case anyone wondered how he stacked up in that chase.

"Tiger has an amazing record in majors," said Augusta native Vaughn Taylor, who tied for 10th and played with Johnson Sunday. "It's nice to see him give one up."

"They say a giant has to fall at some point, and maybe that the case," Johnson said. "You know, it's still very surreal in that respect. The next person to come along like him, who knows how long it's going to be. It makes it that much more gratifying knowing that I beat Tiger Woods, there's no question about it."

It doesn't happen often. But there's a first time for everything -- even for Tiger Woods to not come in first when, given similar circumstances, he had never finished anywhere else.