AUGUSTA, Ga. — So here's the situation in a Masters that broke the mold.

His name is Zach Johnson and he's standing on the No. 15 fairway, thinking over his third shot when the roars come from behind him on No. 13. Tiger Woods, a sleeping giant all day, is finally on the move. Eagle. Two shots behind. It's as if a locomotive suddenly showed up in Johnson's rearview mirror.

The guy chasing him, born 57 days earlier back in the 1970s, has won 12 majors. Zach Johnson has won the BellSouth Classic. He wasn't even the best player on his high school or college team back at Drake.

And this is Sunday at the Masters.

"I assumed it was Tiger making an eagle," he would say later. "You may not know where Tiger is, but you can feel him."

So what does Johnson do?

He makes a safe, solid shot. Then two safe, solid putts for par.

Then he hits within 8 feet on No. 16 and rolls in the birdie putt. That's when he finally looks at the scoreboard for the first time all day. He shakes off a bogey on No. 17 with a par on No. 18 after hitting a near-perfect chip shot to within inches when everyone was still wondering if he might melt.

"I guess," Johnson said, "ignorance is bliss sometimes."

"He's a tough guy," playing partner and close friend Vaughn Taylor said.

Know how a golfer gets to be a tough guy? Nine years ago, Johnson was a starry-eyed kid with no money, hitting the mini-tour circuit, starting in the Prairie Golf Tour, which is the low, low, low minors. "His mother and I did not encourage him," said father David, who still has a reproduction of his son's first tournament check in Zach's old bedroom.

Then came the Hooters Tour, then the Nationwide Tour. Playing only because 10 friends back in Iowa pooled money to stake him.

A guy gets tough, just on all those dinners at Denny's.

Six years ago, he was here as a spectator, watching Tiger Woods practice.

Yesterday, he beat him in the Masters.

"They say a giant has to fall at some point," Johnson said.

So he felt like David yesterday?

"Absolutely. That's a good comparison," he said.

"Very surreal. Very privileged, very honored. It's amazing where I came from."

And the final round 69?

"I don't even know what I shot."

Very strange. But then, it was an oddball Masters, from start to finish. High scores and low wind-chill factors. The winning total was 1-over-par, to match a Masters record.

And Tiger Woods lost a lead on a Sunday.

Given all that, no conventional champion would do.

Who here expected Zach Johnson in a green jacket Sunday night?

Not many. Certainly not Woods.

Question to Woods in his pre-tournament press conference last Tuesday: Does he have a sense that there are some unsung players here this week who might challenge the likes of Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh and himself?

Answer: "Who?"

Now he knows.

The Masters was supposed to be over at 3:06 p.m. yesterday. Precisely. That's what the clock read when Woods took the lead alone, just finishing the third hole. Anyone who knows the difference between a flag stick and a dip stick understood what would happen next.

A victory processional to another title, while the rest of the field tumbled across the fairways like sandwich wrappers. Tiger Woods does not lose Sunday leads in a major.

Except this one. He never came remotely to his Sunday best and was one of four men to lose the lead.

One of the women working in the press building was catching some of the round on television. What's Tiger doing, someone asked her?

"Cussing."

The eagle on No. 13 finally put fire in his eyes, a spring in his step, and the heat on Johnson. But not for long. Woods hit into the water on No. 15 and missed a birdie putt on No. 16, slumping in with a 72.

"Tiger has an amazing record in majors, it's nice to see him give one up," Taylor said.

Woods said he "threw away this tournament," not yesterday but Thursday and Saturday, finishing each round bogey-bogey.

But a Masters such as this one needed a champion such as Zach Johnson.

There was father David, who had a hole-in-one himself this week — speaking of omens.

There was infant son Will, retrieved at the last minute from a nearby church by Johnson's mother-in-law, who got a police escort to get the baby to the 18th green in time.

There was Taylor — an Augusta native who got him that ticket in 2001 — as his playing partner yesterday.

"His attitude is one of the best out there," Taylor said. "His aura, his outlook on life."

"This is harder than I thought," Johnson said at his jacket ceremony, fighting back the tears, thanking God and his caddie and his sponsors and his baby son and his wife Kim. "I'm not too sure I believed in this, but I know she did."

He was popular with the Augusta audience, this new hero who has a Bible verse on his ball marker, and said, "I'm as normal as they come." But he was not universally well-known.

One man cheered for him loudly at No. 18, then turned to his friend and asked, "He's an American, isn't he?"

A different champion for a different Masters.

Mike Lopresti is a columnist for Gannett News Service.