Zach Johnson, Angel Cabrera OK being in Tiger Woods' Augusta shadows

AUGUSTA, Ga. - I realize Tiger Woods is kind of, you know, the focal point of the 2010 Masters.

As every living being knows, this is Woods' first tournament after he had a nutty Thanksgiving night, followed by some wacky details about his personal life that brought golf a lot more attention than, say, the Bob Hope Classic.

It added up to what the late Hunter S. Thompson called bad craziness.

Whenever you hear no one is bigger than the game, put some extra snort in your chortle. At his half-hour Masters press conference Tuesday afternoon, Phil Mickelson got a half-dozen questions about Tiger.

Stewart Cink, Padraig Harrington and David Duval also got Tiger-related questions in their press conferences Tuesday. So did last year's champion. Do you know his name?

I'll give you a moment. He said this Tuesday:

“The Masters is the Masters. They can talk about anybody, they can talk about Tiger, but the Masters is the Masters, and we have to give that importance to the Masters as the Masters.”

The speaker was Angel Cabrera. He had an interpreter, so he was probably a little more eloquent than the translation might indicate.

But Woods hasn't won this event since 2005, so maybe the defending champion had a point. One of the four players who has won at Augusta National more recently than Woods is the son of Cedar Rapids, Zach Johnson.

The 2007 Masters champ has as many top-ten finishes this year as Tiger, which is zero. However, the more confident of the two just might be Johnson.

“The game feels fine, the game feels good,” Johnson said after playing nine holes here Tuesday. “The game's been good all year, quite honestly.”

If you based things strictly on statistics, you may wonder about that. Johnson is 63rd in the PGA Tour's FedExCup point standings after finishing sixth in 2009. He had two victories and nine top-tens last year. He played superbly.

But the line between contending for titles and just making cuts can be fiber optic-thin at this level.

“When it comes down to it,” Johnson said, “I had a good ‘09 and I want to make 2010 better. At the beginning of the year I had some opportunities to really climb up the board and really have some decent finishes. I'm trying to force the issue, which goes against everything I've ever done.

“Part of it is I feel so good about my game. I feel like I'm ready to win. But I've got to let it happen.”

That's strong stuff. Johnson has always kept his outlook positive (“I think I say the right things sometimes, but I don't always put them into play,” he said.). But it was mildly surprising to hear how upbeat he is considering his last two results were a tie for 85th place at the Transitions Championship and a missed cut (his first of the year) at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“The game is good,” Johnson said. “The preparation is possibly great, both mentally and fundamentally, physically.”

Based on past experience, I wouldn't discount his words. On the eve of the 2007 Masters, and with just one top-ten finish that year at that point, Johnson said he was putting “really good.” Four days later, he had a new green jacket.

Not to suggest something similar is coming Sunday, mind you. Woods has been in the top six in each of the last four Masters, so he is someone else not to be discounted.

But just like in 2007 and 2009, nearly all the attention here will be on Tiger. As recent history has shown, the Cabreras and Johnsons don't seem to mind.