Before 7 o'clock on the morning of April 9, 2006, in first light's chill, Tiger Woods moved onto the putting green at Augusta National Golf Club. It was precisely 20 minutes till 7, Woods would tell reporters who shook themselves from bed at the crack of noon. Bleary-eyed, the scribblers arrived in time for an afternoon's denouement in a Masters that was the stuff of movies: heroes and fools, heartbreak and triumph, the morning darkness becoming the golden light of evening.

If for the first time in 51 years they played a Masters without yesterday's legends, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, they now have tomorrow's, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, warriors both, the most accomplished pair of players since Hogan and Snead were at each other's throats a lifetime ago.

There had been reason to doubt Mickelson. Did he have Tiger's ferocity? Tiger's iron will? He had played 42 majors without winning one. No reason to doubt now. Sundays in Augusta are complete examinations, and on this Sunday that began in the dark to make up a round partly lost to rain, Mickelson answered every question emphatically, unequivocally, and forever. "Those two," co-third-place finisher Fred Couples said of Mickelson and Woods, "are going to win several more times."

In winning his second Masters and third major title in three seasons, Mickelson shot a final-round 69, 3 under par, only a last-hole bogey on his scorecard.

The impeccable work gave Mickelson a two-stroke victory on a day when, for hours, the winner's green jacket might have been earned by any of 10 men. A stroke, two strokes, three at the most, separated immortality from obscurity, a distance so small as to be no greater than the diameter of a golf ball -- Rocco Mediate's ball.

It was 4:45 p.m. on a sunny afternoon Mediate will remember always. His second shot to the ninth hole from 150 yards struck the flagstick maybe a foot above the cup. The ball ricocheted against the cup lip -- "the sickest sound," Mediate said. Had the ball gone in the hole, it would have been an eagle -- and who knows from there? An eagle on the ninth would have given the 43-year-old Mediate a two-shot lead in the Masters. Instead, the ball hit the cup edge with such force that it bounced away from the hole and caught a steep slope that let it roll off the green and back onto the fairway.

A par 4 there, not an eagle 2. Mediate stayed tied for the lead -- but only for minutes, only until Mickelson made his first two birdies, at the seventh and eighth holes after six pars -- an unmistakable announcement that this Sunday would be his. Never a wobble on this Sunday. "Winning the first one," he had said two days earlier about the 2004 Masters, "makes me looser this time. So I have greater freedom to play the way I can."

The Sunday heat can melt a guy. There was Ben Crenshaw, twice a Masters winner. Sentimentalists rooted for the sweetheart from Texas, now 54, now playing by memory yet somehow in contention after two rounds. But on the dark and stormy third day extended to Sunday, Crenshaw needed a million shots. So when he walked onto the 18th green at day's end, the customers at greenside gave him the nostalgia applause that defines the Masters as one of sport's most graceful events.

Poor Rocco Mediate. Twenty-one seasons out there. Five times a winner, $12 million in earnings, but never a major champion -- but on this Sunday, going to the 12th tee, he had a gambler's chance, three shots behind Mickelson. His first-round 68 had been "four of a kind," the poker-playing Mediate opined. Maybe the ninth-hole clang was an omen, for three holes later he went bust.

His weak tee shot on the par-3 12th hole fell against the bank of Rae's Creek and rolled into the water. Then twice more into the creek. The horrors ended at the count of 10. He later told reporters, "It's the best 71 holes of golf I've ever played." And he chose to laugh through the trauma of the 10: "Hah! I can't wait to see the film. It'll be funny."

For Phil Mickelson, the movie will be a drama of affirmation. "In '04," he said by way of distinguishing between his Masters victories, "it was a great feeling of relief." That time, he showed skeptics his merit. This time, he felt "satisfaction and accomplishment." In the Sunday heat, he showed he could play at the level of his dreams, there with Tiger.

Dave Kindred is a contributing writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at kindred@sportingnews.com.

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