From Thursday to Sunday, the major themes of the 2007 Masters were the bad weather, the badass golf course and the supposedly inevitable outcome of “Tiger lurking.” Late Sunday, though, as Zach Johnson quietly slipped his way into the green jacket on the back nine, the golf world got to see an utterly new theme: “Tiger choking.”

Except the media wouldn’t take the bait. Gary Van Sickle’s Golf.com tepid lead was typical of the soft pedal approach: “This qualifies as a major news flash: Tiger Woods is human.”

Van Sickle got a little tougher as he chronicled Woods’ numerous mistakes and critical strategic errors. But after leading himself to water, metaphorically speaking, he refused to drink and draw the obvious conclusion. “It's not like Woods to make a strategic error. It's not like Woods to make so many errant shots, especially with the short game.”

He did score points, though, by noting that “Woods did not address his first final-round failure in a major. ‘This one's not disappointing today,’ he said. ‘I threw this tournament away on two days when I had two good rounds and finished bogey-bogey. Four bogeys in the last two holes basically cost me the tournament.’

“Those words were spoken like a man in denial. Shots from previous days didn't cost him a title. He grabbed the lead early in Sunday's final round, but he went on to beat himself. In golf, there is no tougher truth to admit.”

Perhaps the worst of the Tiger apologists was Ron Sirak of GolfDigest.com and Golf World, who started off with this observation: “Maybe even Superman had an off day, or at least a day on which someone else was stronger than him.”

Unfortunately, it got much worse for Sirak: “Woods failed for one of the few times in his career to get the job done was a plot twist so unexpected it served only too remind us how amazing he really is. Sometimes we do Woods a disservice and think he truly is Superman, instead of being a mere mortal fighting the fears and frustrations we all fight. This guy is not a machine, and perhaps the occasional hiccup will remind us he is a human like us all, only a human capable of performing on a level were rarely see, and a level which we should totally appreciate.”

Poor Tigger. At least he has the comfort of knowing his sycophants in the golf press won’t abandon him. For a guy who prides himself on his mental toughness and ability to grind, though, Woods spent an amazing amount of time whining and being graceless under pressure.

"It was the hardest Masters I think I've ever seen, with the wind and the dryness and the speed of these greens," Woods said. "I told a couple of guys out here this week that I'm glad I don't have metal spikes. You could slip on these greens the things were so fast."

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But Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com offered a more realistic take on Woods’ slips. “The lasting images of Tiger this week will be of his frequent off-fairway visits to Augusta National's pine straw, where on Sunday he snapped the steel shaft of a 4-iron after hitting a tree on the follow-through. He also spent lots of time gritting his teeth, smiling facetiously, swearing, slamming clubs and, on one occasion, spitting after a so-so shot. It wasn't his finest day. Or week — not one round under par.”

As for the tournament, the Zach Johnson Cinderella story didn’t make up for the lousy week.

Columnist Tim Guidera of the Augusta Chronicle got most of it right, noting “Right up to its fairly humdrum finish Sunday, the 71st Masters Tournament was about what didn't happen, the lasting memory sure to be the abject lack of memories.

“Nobody broke par for the tournament. Nobody brought the signature energy to Augusta National Golf Club, even on a day when Tiger Woods came from behind to take the lead briefly on Sunday in a major championship but couldn't hold it.

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“In the end, nobody could stop understated Zach Johnson from sneaking out of a crowd on the back nine and into the green jacket after never finishing higher than 17th in a major before this week.”

Indeed, the paper’s “Zach Johnson puts one-over” headline reflected the deflated feeling at Augusta, a pall that Guidera reinforced in his conclusion.

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“This will never be remembered as one of the greatest Masters. The temperatures were too low and the scoring too high. The atmosphere was too subdued and the tournament's personality too hard to identify for three days. It was sort of like a garden variety Tour event — with traffic. One good day at the end wasn't going to wipe all that away.”