AUGUSTA, Ga. - There was a brief interruption, for about a year and a half or so. Some snow in the picture, some sound bites devoted to Fab Fours, Fab Fives and professional golf parity. But on Sunday at the Masters, where Tiger Woods first introduced us to full metal green jackets, he adjusted the antennae, fiddled with the contrast and brought the picture back into focus.

Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen … even Chris DiMarco have raised their games and pushed the issue. The No. 1 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings has space available from time to time. The degrees of separation may be fewer.

But Woods re-set the batting order with a magic marker at Augusta on Sunday. He underlined it with an enchanted chip and a playoff birdie putt.

“More than anything, it’s validation of all the hard work I’ve put into it. Hank (Haney) and I have put some serious hours into this and, you know, I read some of the articles over the past year of him getting ripped. I’m getting ripped for all the changes I’m making, and to play as beautifully as I did this entire week is pretty cool.”

When Woods is at his best, when he frames his Haney swing, measures his distances and grooves his flat stick, he is still the One. He bats both leadoff and cleanup. He plays a game, particularly at Augusta, with which his more-formidable foes occasionally emulate but can never quite duplicate.

“I went out and shot 68 around here on Sunday,” Chris DiMarco said, “which is a very good round, and I finished 12-under, which is usually good enough to win. I just was playing against Tiger Woods.”

At times, it was the Tiger Woods we first saw at Augusta in 1997, when he put 12 strokes between himself and his peers, when he slipped on his first green jacket, size 18-under-par. And after a 10-major leave of absence, after insisting these past months of vulnerability were a temporary imposition, a necessary evil, we were reintroduced on Sunday.

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As happened in ’97, as happened during his stunning run of five major championships from late 1999 to early 2001, it was a spectacular Tiger Woods. As happened in ’97, he arrived unexpectedly, cloaked by an awkward start. After he putted a ball off the green on his fourth hole of the tournament, after he tossed clubs and rattled trees and scraped his way around to an opening 74, who’d a thunk it?

Only Woods, of course. “Hey, when you’re out there playing, you have to trust what you’ve got,” Woods said. “I trusted it.”

The transition was dramatic, the red numbers came rapidly. Between weather breaks, Woods pieced together a 66 in the second round, the same second-round score he had in ’97, the same second-round score he had in 2001 — then he picked it up a notch. He carved out a two-day 65 in the third round, the back end of which seized control of the tournament on Sunday morning.

While DiMarco was disassembling a 45-hole lead, Woods was collecting birdies like baseball collects steroid offenders. When he birdied the first four holes on his third-round back 9, the circle streak reached seven consecutive holes, equaling a Masters record. By the time the final round began, Woods had erased DiMarco’s four-stroke lead and established a three-strike pad of his own.