Weir’s Win Is Right Out of Left Field

It never happens, does it? A ball in the bunker bouncing back and hitting the player in the chest. Tiger Woods making a charge in reverse. A Canadian winning a major. A left-hander winning the Masters. A playoff won with a bogey.

If ever a Masters tournament was destined for an outcome either odd, quirky, unpredictable or downright strange, this surely was it, the one that Mike Weir claimed for his own with a bogey on the first playoff hole to defeat Len Mattiace.

“A great day,” Weir said. “As nerve-racking as it gets.”

Do we hear a second on that?

Phil Mickelson shot a 68 and was third for the third consecutive year, three weeks after welcoming his third child to his family.

Otherwise, Sunday was a day of firsts, all around.

Weir is the first Canadian to win a major, the first left-hander to win the Masters and the first to win a green jacket at Augusta National with a bogey on the deciding hole.

“I couldn’t ask to play much better,” said Weir, who shot a bogey-free 68 in the final round to force the playoff. “Once it all soaks in, I’ll realize how special it is. And it was just a gut-wrenching day.”

Jim Furyk’s 68 moved him into fourth, matching his best finish in a major, and hard-luck Jeff Maggert somehow wound up fifth, rebounding from a two-shot penalty for being struck by his ball in a bunker at the third and a quintuple-bogey at the 12th.

Weir, who already had won the Bob Hope Classic and the Nissan Open at Riviera this year, parred the 18th hole to get into the playoff with Mattiace, whose bogey at 18 was the only blemish on an otherwise spectacular round of 65.

There hadn’t been a playoff here since 1990, when Nick Faldo defeated Raymond Floyd, but in keeping with this week’s theme of the unusual, the Masters provided one this time.

It didn’t last long, just one hole, the downhill, 495-yard, par-four 10th.

Both players split the fairway. From 188 yards, Mattiace missed the green to the left and put his ball behind a pine tree.

He chipped onto the green, about 25 feet past the hole, and after watching Weir’s uphill putt (his third shot) stop six feet past the hole, Mattiace needed one more near-miracle ... like his chip-in birdie at the eighth hole, or the 60-foot putt he rolled in to birdie the 10th, or his eagle at the 13th.

But Mattiace nearly rolled the ball off the green, missed a bogey putt from 18 feet, putting it five feet past.

That left Weir needing only to two-putt from six feet, which he accomplished, tapping in from a foot away to win for the sixth time in his career.

And so it went at the 67th Masters, which may be remembered in many ways ... dogged by controversy over the club’s all-male membership, framed by protesters, drenched in rain, its start postponed for a day and its ending delayed for an extra hole.

Tiger Woods will remember it for what didn’t happen, namely his third consecutive Masters title, an opportunity that was lost with a shaky front nine and a closing-round 75. Woods played the third through the eighth holes in five over par to fall eight shots behind Weir.

Mattiace could have avoided a playoff had he managed to keep the ball out of the pine needles at the right of the 18th fairway. But that’s where Mattiace sent his drive, trying to hang onto his two-shot lead over Weir and playing at the 72nd hole.

For a player in only his second Masters, and one who had never finished in the top 20 at a major, the 18th tee on the last day at Augusta can cause a case of nerves in just about anybody.

“A flare-out fade to the right,” Mattiace described the drive. All he could do was punch out to the fairway and loft a nine-iron to the back of the green.

He had a 35-foot downhill putt for par, to keep his lead.

The green looked fast, Mattiace said. “Like ice.”

Mattiace left it short, but made his seven-footer for bogey and decided to hit a few practice balls in case Weir forced a playoff.

Maggert needed a seat belt on his wild ride to a 75. He held a one-shot lead at the third, where he drove into a fairway bunker on the left. That’s where disaster struck. Maggert dug the ball, but it struck the lip of the sand trap, bounced back and hit him in the chest.

Said Maggert: “Funny things happen sometimes.”

He took a two-shot penalty, wound up with a triple bogey and could have disappeared. But he made two birdies and was at four under, one shot behind Weir, when he came to the 12th hole, where funny things happened again.

Maggert hit into a back bunker, from where he hit into Rae’s Creek. At the penalty area, he hit his next shot into the water. He finally got the ball on the green and two-putted for an eight.

As for Mickelson, he birdied three of the last six holes and it still wasn’t enough.

“I played well,” he said. “I think it’s the best round I’ve played at Augusta and I’m happy with it.”

The happiest of all was Weir, the former hockey player who played that sport at Brigham Young, whose idol was Wayne Gretzky, and who felt fortunate to have Gretzky as his partner at Pebble Beach.

Weir called himself a summer golfer until he went to Provo. His schedule was hockey through the fall, winter and spring and then golf in the summer. His father put a net in the garage so he could hit balls. If the weather was decent enough back home, he would pound golf balls into Lake Huron.

Weir writes with his right hand, throws with his left, serves in tennis with his left and then plays with his right hand.

But the ball didn’t know from which side it was being hit at the 13th, where Weir rammed in a 15-foot putt for a birdie, or at the 15th, where he knocked a wedge to four feet and made another birdie putt to pull even with Mattiace.

After Weir two-putted from 45 feet at the 18th, the playoff was on, then over quickly. It may take some time for Weir to figure out what it all means, which is only natural, considering the way the Masters played out this time.

“It’s tough to grasp, that’s for sure,” Weir said. “But I know it’s pretty special.”

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Playoff: Hole 10

Sudden-death playoff between Mike Weir and Len Mattiace:

* Shot 1: Both players drive off 10th tee to middle of fairway.

* Mattiace shot 2: Misses green left, landing in the rough behind a pine tree.

* Weir shot 2: Hits six-iron on green, 45 feet below the hole.

* Mattiace shot 3: Chips onto green, ball rolls 25 feet past pin.

* Weir shot 3: Putts uphill six feet past hole.

* Mattiace shot 4: Putts almost off green, 18 feet past hole on the fringe.

* Mattiace shot 5: Still away, he putts five feet past hole.

* Weir shot 4: Putts ball inches past the cup.

* Weir shot 5: Taps in for victory.