After Making Hearts Race, Now He Can Make History

The moon had hurried to the sky. The dew had settled on the pine needles. Many in his mud-splattered gallery were trudging toward the parking lot.

It was 5:50 p.m. on a Saturday night of a tournament that ends on a Sunday, and both man and nature assumed he had finally met a Masters he couldn’t climb.

Then Tiger Woods showed up.

Of course he did. The great ones always do.

John Elway came out of a huddle, Michael Jordan came out of the sky, and Woods comes from somewhere in our wildest imaginations, a different place every time, but rarely as unfamiliar and hair-raising as this.

On Saturday, golf’s monster emerged from the shadows.

With four holes left in the third round, still sitting on the wrong side of par, he sank a banking, twisting 35-foot putt for a birdie.

Both fists shot into the air. Passersby slid in their tracks. Fans lining nearby fairways twisted their necks.

“It’s on,” said one. “It’s on.”

On his next hole, No. 7 at Augusta National Golf Club, with a crowd now gathered 10 deep around the green, Woods spun an approach shot within a couple of inches. Fans were jumping over shoulders to see it. When he made the putt for birdie, the roar shook Butler Cabin.

By the time Woods walked through a roped-off corridor toward his final two holes, cigar-chomping fans were crowding and shouting encouragement to him as if he were a boxer headed toward the ring.

Which, in his world, he is.

The fight is today, the stakes are history, and even though Woods will start with one gloved hand tied behind his back, nobody is betting against him.

On Saturday morning, he needed a three-foot putt to make the cut.

By nightfall, he was four strokes from leading the tournament.

From deep-sixed to a third-round 66.

From too bad to 215, a total that has him tied for fifth behind leader Jeff Maggert.

“Four back? That’s not inconceivable,” Woods said with a grin.

The records say he can’t win it.

But the records are a lot more certain today than Maggert and Mike Weir, the two top golfers who will be starting two groups behind Woods.

Far enough away so they don’t have to look at him.

Close enough to hear his cheers.

“I just kind of felt like [Woods] was going to play a good round today and obviously he did,” Maggert said, his throat getting an early visit by that lump.

If Woods wins today he would, of course, become the first man to win three consecutive Masters titles. But after Saturday, it will be even more than that.

He would be the first guy to win a Masters in 13 years who did not play in the final group on the final day.

It would be his first comeback victory in a major, with all eight wins having occurred when he was either leading or tied for the lead on the final day.

History, upon history, with pressure, sort of like asking Barry Bonds to hit a record-setting homer on an 0-and-2 count.

Woods has done many things but has never done this.

His greatest challenge on what could be his greatest day.

Grab a cigar and start hollering.

“This tournament, we all know that anything can happen on the back nine,” Woods said with another smile, possibly referring to Maggert’s double bogey on the 11th hole Saturday while Weir had four bogeys on his back nine.

Those men would do well to adopt Woods’ strategy when faced with needing a three-foot putt on the ninth hole Saturday morning, his final hole of the rain-delayed second round.

If he missed it, he missed the cut for the first time in 102 tournaments. He judged the distance, checked the break, and decided on a complicated philosophy.

“I said, ‘The hell with it ... just make it,’ ” he said.

So he did, finishing the round at five over par, 11 strokes behind leader Weir.

At the same time Woods was staying in the tournament, Martha Burk’s folks were embarrassing themselves back to Atlanta.

The celebrated protest against Augusta’s exclusionary membership policies was a joke, a ragtag carnival in a field several blocks from the course, nothing like she promised, the humiliation of a good cause.

Woods shrugged, and went home for a quick lunch, then returned to the course to begin his third round on the 10th hole, with the scrubs.

“I knew I would be teeing off with the leaders,” he said, laughing. “Just on the wrong tee.”

On the 11th hole, he sank a 50-foot birdie putt. Then two holes later, his approach shot stayed on the top shelf of a green that had been spitting them out all day.

“I said, ‘Well, just keep this going,’ ” he said.

The scoreboard today will say it’s about Woods and Maggert and Weir and Vijay Singh and David Toms and Phil Mickelson and Jose Maria Olazabal.

But, really, it’s about Woods and 1997, and 2001, and 2002.

He can remember punking everyone by 12 strokes one year, staring down Mickelson another year, watching a handful of stars crumble in his wake last year.

Nobody still playing can look into a closet of green jackets and pick out the right size on the first try like Woods.

Woods will tee off today with something more powerful than his driver and more precise than his putter. He will tee off with his memory.

“It makes you feel assured knowing the fact that you’ve done it here before,” he said. “I know I have that experience on the back nine. I know how to win a major championship.”

But does he know how to win it from behind?

We are indeed ready to rumble.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.