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It may not have been the usual or expected cast of characters but the Masters once again kept all golf addicts on the edge of their chairs this past Easter Sunday.

After two days, the main stars were nowhere to be seen. Vijay played poorly, Ernie didn't make the cut, and Sergio fizzled out on moving day with a 75. Harrington gave us something to think about although not whether he was going to make it three Majors in a row, rather whether he had caused his ball to move on 15. Interesting, yes, but he was never really involved in the hunt for the green jacket and when he marked a 9 on his card at the 2nd on Day 4, he was left to rue what might have been.

Cameo roles

Even Tiger and Phil were playing cameo roles after Day 2 and they had to work hard on Day 3 to improve their standing relative to the leaders. Their positions after close of play on Day 3 left us all wondering why they had not played as well as Kenny Perry, Chad Campbell and Angel Cabrera. Indeed, when Day 3 came to a close, the leader board was filled with second tier players and it seemed that the Masters was headed for a quiet finish.

The pairing on Day 4 of Woods and Mickelson was the first sign that maybe some life was to be injected into the 2009 Masters. Mickelson started fast, very fast, and when Tiger holed his eagle putt at 8, you could sense that the golf gods were hard at work conjuring up something special. To add to the suspense, while these two superstars were living up to their reputation, the other three were beginning to struggle, and you sensed a collapse was imminent.

When the collapse finally came, it was one of the superstars who slipped. The stupidity of it all made you want to reach inside your TV set, grab Mickelson by the scruff of his neck and slap him about the head.

How could he make such a stupid mistake? Amateurs underclub, not professionals, and certainly not at a time like that. Mickelson's tee shot on Sunday at the 12th was abysmal and it will hang on golf's Wall of Shame alongside his other equally abysmal tee shot at the U.S. Open. That he missed two very short putts after that made no never mind. Mickelson no longer deserved to win and the golf gods made sure that he

didn't.

Tiger did his very best to rattle the leaders but with the main challenger drowning on 12, new life was injected into the leaders. When Kenny Perry hit his tee shot on 16 to a foot, and increased his lead to 2, it was all but over with the only question remaining being "Mr. Perry, sir, what is your jacket size?"

Distracted

It was then that Kenny Perry began thinking about his accomplishment before it was in fact an accomplishment. The golf gods do not take well to such thinking and, had it been Woods instead of Perry, Woods would have been thinking "Finish the race." But Kenny Perry is not Tiger Woods. Kenny Perry had become distracted, and two closing bogeys and some sloppy play in the playoff left him empty handed.

In competitive golf, there is only one winner and sometimes we simply have to lick our wounds and move on. Kenny Perry has said publicly that he wants to win a major but it is now that we shall see what he is really made of.

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