Anybody who had seen Woods hole an almost-impossible chip from behind the 16th green — the ball’s logo even posed for a deep breath before falling into the cup — en route to another green jacket two years ago couldn’t wait to see what was next. This time, though, most of them watched Woods coming down the stretch by sneaking peeks through the gaps in the fingers covering their eyes.

Johnson, though, couldn’t bear to do even that much.

“I really wasn’t looking at the leaderboard,” he said afterward. “I left that up to Damon (Green), my caddie. I never really knew where I stood.

“I said, ’Damon, should I look? Should I look?’ I didn’t know until the 17th, and then I realized I just had to play solid and go from there.”

Turns out Johnson could have peeked much earlier. After the 13th, Woods uncharacteristically ran out of magic.

He dunked a second shot at the par-5 15th and had to scramble to make par. He hit a 7-iron to 12 feet below the hole at the par-3 16th and missed that.

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“It was difficult, very difficult,” Woods said. “It was the hardest Masters I’ve ever seen, with the wind, the dryness, the speed of these things. I told a couple guys out here this week, ’I was glad I had metal spikes on, or I would have slipped on the greens, they were so slick.”

Woods exited the clubhouse soon after, surrounded by his agent and four security guards, sipping a diet soda and carrying a new driver under his arm. He headed for the driving range and so strong is the legend that’s grown up around Woods that a few people following him actually thought he was going to practice.

Instead, he used a back entrance to the players’ parking lot, started up the car and drove down Magnolia Lane. There would be no more golf this day. This Masters was over, and with it went a piece of Tiger’s aura of invincibility.

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