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Dream Masters finish might be left to dreamers

epope@MiamiHerald.com

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Dreams are busting up all over the place. Tiger Woods probably isn't going to win his fifth Masters. Not Sunday, anyway. Phil Mickelson won't nail his third. Paddy Harrington can forget taking his third consecutive major.

But new dreams are forever sprouting out of this stretch of paradise that remains so close to a lot of golfers' ideas of heaven. Thus we have Augusta National opening its arms to the less famous, namely coleaders Angel Cabrera and Kenny Perry, then Chad Campbell and then maybe the game's most underrated star in Jim Furyk.

Tiger isn't going anyplace, half because he is seven strokes back and half because seven players are jammed between the king and the coleaders' 11-under-par.

Mickelson couldn't claw any closer to the lead than the same seven strokes as Woods. Harrington dropped a dreadful 12 shots off the pace, and a bunch of Irishmen were drowning their sadness in Guinness by

evening.

And, oh yes, Trevor Immelman. Remember him? He won this deal last year. Going into Sunday's final round, he stands only even with par, 11 irredeemable shots behind the hottest shooters.

''It will be interesting to see how the leaders get on with the pressure and the breeze swirling around and the greens firming up,'' Immelman said.

Cabrera made it clear that the pressurized experience of winning the 2007 U.S. Open would help him under any conditions Sunday.

''Very important,'' Cabrera said, and it will be.

BORROWED TIME

Perry has had even more experience, 27 years on the PGA Tour. He's a good old country boy who borrowed $2.5 million to build his own golf course back when you could borrow that much. If he should win Sunday, his total rake-off, including endorsements, would match that old sum, and then some.

Perry and Campbell played together Saturday. They are old friends, but Perry said: ``There wasn't much talk out there. And I'm not going to talk about winning. When I've done that before, I haven't played very well. I just need to get through that front nine with a decent score.''

Campbell would be the first Texan to win here since Ben Crenshaw in 1995, after also winning in '84.

Interestingly -- at least to your grass-stained little correspondent at lunch in the clubhouse, where good food is happily cheap -- I heard some theories from Crenshaw on how different Campbell's grip is from most of the guys out here.

Unfortunately, the theories were so esoteric that Crenshaw lost me after the word ''grip.'' But Little Ben's entire exposition sounded good -- he always sounds good -- and besides, Crenshaw said he was paying particular attention to the grip in hopes of doing better on the Champions Tour.

PLENTY TO WATCH

Now, for the usual furious finish, the eyes of Argentina are fixed upon Cabrera.

Others will be crooning My Old Kentucky Home for Perry, who is looking to become the oldest majors champion -- 48 years, 8 months, even longer-toothed than Julius Boros' 48 years, 4 months, when he won the 1968 PGA Championship.

And, naturally, it's The Eyes of Texas for Campbell.

None of these visions excludes the chances of Furyk, Steve Stricker, Todd Hamilton, Shingo Katayama and Rory Sabbatini. But anyone with a score less imposing than Sabbatini's 6-under has to be considered out of it.

Meanwhile, at this strange juncture, it is difficult to imagine the odds you could have gotten that not one of the threesome of Woods, Mickelson or Harrington would finish first, second or third.

After Friday's second round, Woods still was favored at 7-2, with Mickelson at 12-1 and Harrington at 25-1.

Obviously, a number of numbers have changed since then.

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