AUGUSTA, Ga. - Late Saturday afternoon, with the Masters leader board being sorted out to set up Sunday's final round, Kenny Perry stroked a 25-foot putt on the 12th and blew it seemingly that far by the pin. Chad Campbell, in the greenside bunker at No. 16, talked himself out of truly following through, and left himself squarely in the bunker to try, humbly, yet again. Angel Cabrera, too, stood on the 18th tee with a chance to lead the Masters outright through 54 holes, but pushed his drive right, where it was saved only by a generous tree.

This kind of mayhem is to take nothing away from the splendid golf played at Augusta National, because Perry and Cabrera, who share the third-round lead at 11 under par, have handled themselves exceptionally well here. Campbell, who sits at 9 under, was nearly flawless as well until the final three holes, when he double-bogeyed 16 and bogeyed the last, costing him at least a share of the lead.

As soon as Perry's short par putt on 18 rattled into the bottom of the cup Saturday evening, the final round of the Masters, in a sense, began. How those players and the others behind them - Jim Furyk at 8 under, Steve Stricker at 7 under and the group of Todd Hamilton, Shingo Katayama and Rory Sabbatini at 6 under - handle their dinner, a potentially restless night, and the cotton-mouthed moments on that first tee Sunday all factor in.

"You need to test yourself," Perry said after his four-birdie, two-bogey 70, which put him at 205. "You need to see what's inside yourself."

They are about to find out. That process, indeed, started Saturday. "First shot, right out of the gate," Perry admitted, "I was nervous." His drive went well right.

Maybe those jitters are one reason why, despite greens softened by a wicked overnight thunderstorm and winds that only occasionally kicked up to full gale, none of the 50 players who survived the cut managed better than 68 Saturday.

"Really?" said Furyk, who shot one of those 68s. The conditions were right. The situation, however, was not.

"The hardest part," Campbell said, "is before you get out to the golf course."

So let the stomach-managing begin. What was determined Saturday was that the 2009 Masters champion is likely to follow the last two winners, Zach Johnson in 2007 and Trevor Immelman last year, in slipping on the green jacket for the first time. Of the top nine players on the leader board, only Cabrera and Furyk - who won the 2007 and 2003 U.S. Opens, respectively - and Hamilton, who took the British Open in 2004, have won majors.

For this to become a star-studded Sunday, the group at 4 under - which includes the six Masters owned by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who will play together in the final round - would have to come into play.

"A little wind out there, tough conditions, a good round could get those scores back in it," Furyk said. "I definitely don't want to count those guys out."

Particularly if knees start knocking in the final two groups. Woods, it would seem, should be the calm, steady presence here, what with his four green jackets. But his third round began with a yanked drive into the pine straw, a punch across the fairway to the right side of the first green, a chunked chip into the side of a slope, a 20-foot uphill putt four feet short - and then a stunning, tone-setting miss of that putt. That performance, which virtually any member of Augusta National could have pulled off, thrust him back to even par for the tournament.

And when he pushed his drive on No. 2, requiring a chopped-down 8-iron just to get free - "I hit it about 12 yards," he said - the die was cast. Woods would go to bed Saturday night, following his 70-212, wondering what, if anything, he might be able to do on a Sunday afternoon, when he will try to come from seven shots back.

"I didn't shoot 64 or 63 today," Woods said. "Actually, I did - but I just needed to play a couple more holes."

Woods dismissed the notion that his just-completed layoff - he missed nine months following surgery on his left knee - left him ill-prepared for major championship golf. "Not that at all," he said. "I just didn't hit the ball as precise as I needed to today."

(April 12, 2009)