Mickelson wins Masters

"The great shot is when you pull it off," he said later, explaining his operating Phil-osophy. "The smart shot is when you don't have the guts to try it."

The angel on his shoulder advocated laying up, protecting his slim lead at the time. The little devil on the other side then went after that sissy with a 60-degree wedge.

Crunching about on the pine straw, looking through a slot in the pine trees at a well-guarded green 200 yards downrange, Mickelson's only question was what club to best fashion his bold statement.

"Six iron, 207, knocked it to four feet," he later recounted, in a comedic deadpan.

Even missing the putt that followed and "settling" for a birdie, Mickelson had in reality just slipped one arm into his third green jacket.

That would be the last disaster he cared to flirt with this afternoon, cruising in with a final-round 67, a 16-under 272 for the tournament and a three-stroke victory over Lee Westwood.

Mickelson had replaced the usual drama of a Sunday late afternoon at the Masters with a sentimental stroll while fans cheered the idea of him winning for both his wife and his mother and their fight against breast cancer. The last three holes, he flashed the patrons more thumbs-up signs than a presidential campaigner.

When he finished off his most excellent round, Amy and the couple's three daughters were there to receive him. It was the first tournament his wife had been able to attend since being diagnosed with cancer 11 months ago.

Man and wife hugged, like, forever.

"Not much was said," Mickelson said. "To have her here and to share this moment and share the joy of winning with her and my kids is something that we'll look back on the rest of our lives. This means so much to us to be able to share this type of jubilation."

Mickelson owned Augusta National's back nine this week, finishing a combined 13-under-par on that stretch for the tournament. He was 4-under on the backside Sunday, and finished this thing off with a flourish, canning a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

He was required to do some fancy damage control midway in the round, when his driver lost its way. Scrambling for pars out of the trees on holes 9, 10 and 11 saved the round.

Then it came time to embellish it.

On the par-3 12th, he knocked a 9-iron 20 feet from the pin, sank the putt, marking the moment with an appropriate fist pump.

Then, by the time he hit his tee shot through the fairway at 13 and into the junk, he just got fed up with any kind of salvage operation. It was time to get definitive.

Mickelson didn't seem to think that 6-iron from the pine straw was such a big deal. To him that gap in the trees might as well been wide enough to land a 737, and the creek fronting the green did not exist in Phil World.

Others were not so unimpressed.

"To hit it on the green from the pine straw that close was miraculous," said Fred Couples, low 50-year-old (finishing sixth and 9-under).

"It's one of the few shots, really, that only Phil could pull off. I think most people would have just chipped that one out. But, you know, that's what great players do," said Westwood.

Ah, shucks, says Mickelson. "I just felt like at that time, I needed to trust my swing and hit and shot. And it came off perfect."

The omens didn't always favor Mickelson this day.

You know about the greens that are like buckled linoleum. You know about Rae's Creek guarding No. 12 and Ike's tree on No. 17 that former president Eisenhower hit so often he wanted it turned to kindling (and was turned down).

Augusta National deployed another heretofore secret defensive weapon against Mickelson Sunday: The Stealth Pine Particle.

Just as Mickelson was drawing down on a tricky, eight-foot downhill birdie putt on the par-5 second hole, a pine pollen pod fluttered down from the clear blue sky. This was a day for challenging astronomical odds – see the two holes-in-one on the 16th. And now this little bit of reproductive detritus landed directly in Mickelson's line. His putt bounded over the speed bump and lurched off course.

"You have to wonder, is somebody out to get you?" Mickelson said.

Not to worry.

With a fourth-round 65, Anthony Kim made a determined drive at Mickelson, but started just too far back. Westwood was winded trying to keep up with his playing partner's finishing kick.

And that other fellow – Tiger Woods is his name – was so out of it from the beginning that he never seemed a real challenger. It is never a good sign when you begin a round as Woods – walking to his ball up the wrong (ninth) fairway. He failed to reach his first five greens in regulation, but still shot 69 and finished in a tie for fourth.

In the end, Woods and his return to golf from a simmering sex scandal was reduced to a footnote.

The final cheers of this Masters rang out for the kind of story that was unfit grist for the tabloid mill.

The plot settled on Phil and Amy Mickelson, and the idea of celebrating a marriage of shared strength and joy.

In retrospect, it was the best kind of story.