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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Angel Cabrera won in the Easter gloaming after a spectacular Sunday at the Masters stretched almost into Sunday night.

The man from Argentina whose nickname is El Pato (the Duck) waddled up and down the final holes at Augusta, including two more in a playoff, and held off the charging stars.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson provided the soundtrack for the final day, an afternoon of roaring thunder from all over the golf course as the twosome went low and made dramatic runs from nowhere to set the scene for a long evening at the 73rd Masters. Their untidy finish set the stage for what would follow.

Kenny Perry lost the Masters before Cabrera could win it. And that was after Chad Campbell had dropped out of a three-way playoff on the first extra hole. Perry had a two-stroke lead with two holes to play, but the man who admits not being able to chip, proved it once again.

"It was a good day," he insisted afterward. "I played great all the way through 16."

He tapped in a four-inch putt at the par-3 16th just as Woods wobbled out of the tournament with bogeys at 17 and 18, and after Mickelson's brilliant run all but ended with a shot into Rae's Creek at the fateful 12th.

"It was a very emotional day because it was up and down and up and down, a lot of highs and lows," Mickelson said. "The crowd made the highs even higher, and the moans made the lows even lower. It was just an emotional day."

The tournament was ultimately available to anyone who could finish. That didn't include Woods, who wasted three straight days before making his run, then wasted his run with the two bogeys at the end, Mickelson recovered from the double at 12 only to fall back again at the end.

Campbell made a steady run only to fail in the playoff, and Perry somehow lost to a man who played out of the trees on the final hole to become the first Argentine to win the Masters and doing it 41 years after countryman Roberto De Vicenzo signed an incorrect scorecard to miss a 1968 playoff by one shot.

Cabrera acknowledged the gaffe was still on the minds of Argentines and hoped his win would calm the golfing soul of his nation. A nation of American golfers stepped aside Sunday and allowed him to play through at the end of a long week that restored both order and chaos to the Masters.

The previous years seemed to sap the energy from the season's first major, a revamped golf course taking the fun out the run for the green jacket and producing a series of champions not named Woods or Mickelson. Or for that matter, any of the top American golfers. Like the strange run at the end of the 60s that saw players like Gay Brewer, Bob Goalby and George Archer slow the dominance of Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player and Arnold Palmer, the last two winners here were Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman.

Add to that the name of Cabrera, now a two-time major winner in the age of Tiger Woods, who was 6-under for his round before an untidy finish. He'd stumbled around for three days before being paired with Mickelson on Sunday, and the two inspired each other and fed off a ridiculously large gallery to make a run for the ages. It was one of the loudest days in Masters history until the twosome faded in the half-light.

A week that included the fast start by Campbell, the emergence of the 48-year-old Perry, a Friday night tornado and a Saturday run that had anywhere from nine to 18 players in contention heading into Easter Sunday, ended minutes before it would've been to dark to continue.

The sun-splashed day seemed to foretell a dramatic ending, and for the longest time it appeared Woods and Mickelson would make for a miraculous finish. Then it seemed certain that Perry would finally break through and win his first major. He'd said so many times that his chipping would never allow him to win at Augusta, and he proved it by making several bad stabs in the final holes, somehow playing flawlessly until the pressure did him in.

"It's a mental game, and it plays a lot with your head out there," he said. Then he added inexplicably, "I'm going to enjoy it."

No one will enjoy this one except Cabrera, who dragged down Perry at the end and won on the second playoff hole, the long downhill 10th, where a playoff involving De Vicenzo would've started all those years ago. With the light fading and the final hole in the cathedral of pines playing completely in shadow, Cabrera waited for Perry to play himself completely out of emotion before waddling up and tapping in a putt for the ages.

The roars returned to the Masters this week, and Cabrera picked up a fallen countryman on his way to a win at Augusta just before the lights went out and the stars came out.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com