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AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — The Masters delivered the show everyone wanted and a champion no one expected.
Angel Cabrera became the first Argentine to win the green jacket at Augusta National on Sunday by surviving a wild final round that began with a supercharged duel between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and ended with a stunning collapse by Kenny Perry.
Indeed, this Masters had it all.
Two shots behind with two holes to play, Cabrera fought his way into a three-way playoff when the 48-year-old Perry, on the verge of becoming golf's oldest major champion, bogeyed the final two holes.
Even in a playoff, Cabrera looked like the odd man out.
He drove into the trees, hit another shot off a Georgia pine, but still scrambled for par with an 8-foot putt. He won with a routine par on the 10th hole when Perry missed the green badly to the left and made yet another bogey, this one the most costly of them all.
``I may never get this opportunity ever again, but I had a lot of fun being in there,'' Perry said. ``I had the tournament to win. I lost the tournament. But Angel hung in there. I was proud of him.''
Cabrera, who won the U.S. Open at Oakmont two years ago, finally earned a green jacket for Argentina.
It was 41 years ago when Roberto de Vicenzo made one of golf's most famous gaffes, signing for the wrong score that denied him a spot in a Masters playoff.
De Vicenzo gave him a picture of a green jacket two years ago when Cabrera returned home as U.S. Open champion and told him to go for it. On this turbulent day, it took everything Cabrera had.
``This is a great moment, the dream of any golfer to win the Masters,'' Cabrera said through an interpreter during the green jacket ceremony. ``I'm so emotional I can barely talk.''
He closed with a 1-under 71 to get into the first three-man playoff at the Masters in 22 years.
Chad Campbell finished with a 69 and was eliminated on the first playoff hole when he found a bunker from the middle of the 18th fairway, then watched his 6-foot par putt lip out of the hole.
The final hour was almost enough to make a dizzy gallery forget about the Woods-Mickelson fireworks hours earlier.
For those who feared Augusta National had become too tough, too dull and far too quiet, the roars returned in a big way. Mickelson and Woods played together in a final round of a major for the first time in eight years, and they proved to be the best undercard in golf.
Mickelson tied a Masters record with a 30 on the front nine to get into contention. Woods chased him around Amen Corner, then caught him with three birdies in a four-hole stretch that captured the imagination of thousands of fans who stood a dozen deep in spots for a view.
But it ended with a thud.
Mickelson lost his momentum with a 9-iron into Rae's Creek on the par-3 12th, and when he missed a 4-foot eagle putt and a 5-foot birdie putt down the stretch. He had to settle for a 67 that left him three shots behind.
Woods bogeyed the last two holes for a 68 to finish another shot back.
Then came the Main Event.
Perry did not make a birdie until his 20-foot putt on the 12th curled into the side of the cup. Campbell, playing in the group ahead, narrowly missed two eagle putts on the back nine to forge a brief share of the lead.
It looked like Perry had the green jacket buttoned up when he hit his tee shot to within a foot of the cup on the par-3 16th hole for a two-shot lead over Campbell and Cabrera, who made an 18-foot birdie putt on the 16th just to stay in the game.
But after going 22 consecutive holes without a bogey, he made two at the worst time.
