Mastering the Masters

I never would have projected that golf’s greatest tournament, The Masters, would prove to be a morality tale in 2010, but that’s what it ultimately ended up being.

I’ll skip through the morality part for a moment, and simply say congratulations to the new three-time Masters champion, Phil Mickelson.

Phil, that shot on 13, the one from behind and between those two trees…well, it was a pure thing of beauty, it took some major guts, and it paid off.

That, along with Phil’s two-eagle run on Saturday (including a chip-in on 14) made for some pretty amazing golf to watch.

Of course, the others at the top of the leaderboard over the weekend also brought tremendous drama to this year’s Masters.  Tom Watson (60 years of age) and Fred Couples (50 years of age, and with still the most beautiful swing in golf), shooting under par and demonstrating to the young flat bellies they could still play and play bigtime.

K.J. Choi, whose almost robot-like performance belied a seeming concentration to rival that of Tiger Woods, his four-day playing partner.

Woods, who despite the off-course drama still brought an amazing, if inconsistent, golf game to Augusta after a five-month layoff.  Not sure many other players could have shot 11 under under similar circumstances.  And even Woods hit several magical shots from out of the trees.

Britain’s Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, both of whom walked into the weekend with a Union Jack stride, and Westwood incredibly gracious and positive in his post-Masters interview.  If you want to know what good sportsmanship is all about, watch that interview with Westwood.

But in the end, it was the picture of a tearful Phil Mickelson, hugging his wife Amy (who has been battling breast cancer) and their three kids just off the green at 18, that the Masters was left with.

And whether or not the morality tale was an intentional one, it was one we could all relate to.