Matchless

It wasn't the outfit. Tiger Woods was wearing a black shirt and hat, with charcoal-gray slacks. It must've been his sinewy arms and buff, V-shaped upper body, and the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet, 341-yard drive he had just launched at the 4th hole of the Gallery at Dove Mountain. Whatever, as Woods strode down the fairway a starstruck fan blurted out, "Wow! He looks like Superman!" � Woods was making his first visit to Tucson , which explains the Tigermania, but who's to argue? With 55 PGA Tour wins and 12 major championships, and riding a Tour winning streak of seven, Tiger did appear to be the Man of Steel. But golf is not a movie, and while the Accenture Match Play Championship was filled with upsets, heroics, blunders and drama, plus a terrific Sunday final in which Henrik Stenson of Sweden defeated Geoff Ogilvy of Australia 2 and 1, the match of the week was played two days earlier on a chilly, windy Friday. That's when Superman caught a cold.

Baseball's Joe DiMaggio had Ken Keltner , Ken Jennings of Jeopardy had Nancy Zerg, and now it can be said that Tiger Woods has Nick O'Hern , a.k.a. Buzz Killjoy. In 2005 O'Hern, a gangly, lefthanded Australian who speaks softly and carries a big stick--the long-shafted putter he wields better than anyone in the game--had knocked Woods out of the Match Play in the second round. In the first two rounds last week Woods had cruised past J.J. Henry and Tim Clark , and the chances of Tiger allowing a Punch and Judy hitter like O'Hern to defeat him again were less than those of Barry Bonds winning a popularity contest. No one had ever beaten Tiger twice in match play. No one, that is, until O'Hern, who did it with a scrambling par on the second hole of a playoff.

So how does it feel to beat Tiger twice? "It's something to tell the grandkids, I guess," said O'Hern, who practically yawned while giving the answer.

And what about ending Tiger's bid to match Byron Nelson 's record of 11 straight wins? "Yeah, that's right," O'Hern said, feigning surprise. "Tiger was going for eight in a row, wasn't he?" O'Hern paused. "I don't pay too much attention, to be honest." Thanks, Buzz.

With that, the Streak was over. It was a shocker because Woods seemed destined to at least match Nelson 's record. If he had gotten through the Match Play, victory number 9 could've come at Bay Hill, where he has won four times; number 10 could've come at Doral, where he has won the last two years; and historic number 11 could've come at the Masters, which he has won four times in 12 starts. Easy? No. Realistic? Absolutely.

Woods 's path to the Match Play final looked like a cinch as every player in the top 10 of the World Ranking was gone by the weekend, except No. 8 Stenson . There were no Furyks, Phils or Ernies--not even a DiMarco--standing in the way.

On top of that, Tiger hadn't really botched a Tour finish since he got dusted by Ed Fiori in the Quad Cities Open during his first weeks as a pro. February 23 will go down as the day Tiger finally played a game with which we weren't familiar. He made two doubles and an X over the first seven holes, going 4 down in the process. His X came at the driveable par-4 7th hole, where he lost his tee shot right and ended up partially blocked by a tree. His ensuing desperate trick shot airmailed the green and disappeared into the desert, and he conceded the hole. "I just didn't have control of my swing," Woods would say later.

Despite his struggles, Tiger rolled in a birdie putt on the next hole. Three down. Then he forcefully drained a 10-footer at the 11th, walking off the green with his putter raised, acknowledging the roars. Two down. He gave fist pumps after a nice up-and-down for birdie at the 12th. One down.

Tiger was into it, and so was the crowd. On the way to the 13th tee, rules official Steve Rintoul could barely be heard when he said, " Stevie Williams [Tiger's caddie] just told me, 'It's starting to feel a whole lot warmer now,' and I don't think he meant the weather."

When O'Hern needed two tries to get a chip shot onto the 15th green, the match was all square. Woods went 1 down again after flubbing a three-iron at 17, but when he hit a prodigious drive at the 18th, even O'Hern knew that Tiger would make birdie to send the match to overtime.