Mickelson Chokes Opportunity To Choke At Masters

For the longest time, Phil Mickelson was a Sunday afternoon escape artist. He would find himself chained atop the leaderboard and, without key or hacksaw, unmanacle himself from first place and shimmy down the standings. Ta da!

Again, here he was in the final pairing of the 2010 Masters on the final day with some — nay, several — opportunities to blow it. The 13th hole comes to mind. With the lead, he shanked the drive into some of Georgia's finest foliage. Typical Sunday Phil, right? Yet escaped from the sylvan trap and made birdie, becoming perhaps the most heart-clenching closer since Todd Jones.

Time after time, he failed to relinquish the lead in the way so many people were hoping. Instead, suddenly he has become the eighth person in history to win three Masters. Had you not been privy to his previous disasters, you'd have seen Saturday's eagle-eagle-birdie string and would have thought Lefty was golf's best player. And he may as well be, considering he did the impossible. No, not winning a major after his wife's battle with cancer. Rather, he abruptly diverted all the attention away from Tiger Woods.

Final Leaderboard Phil Mickelson -16Lee Westwood -13Anthony Kim -12Tiger Woods -11K.J. Choi -11Fred Couples -9Nick Watney -8Hunter Mahan -7Y.E. Yang -7

OthersErnie Els -1Angel Cabrera -1Matteo Manassero +4 (top amateur)Retief Goosen +6Sergio Garcia +10

Article Author: Matthew T. Sussman

Sussman is the founder and former editor of Blogcritics Sports. Twitter: @suss2hyphens

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