James Lawton: Woods proves to be as much a champion in defeat as success

The Masters: World No 1 comes to terms with costly error of judgement while winner puts the Maple Leaf on the golf map

As sure as the sun is rising over the pines and the red earth here, the Tiger will be back. It is a matter of talent and character and genius. Also, something which is indispensable in the make-up of a champion. It is that honesty which ultimately shapes everything that a great performer is able to produce at the highest level – an honesty which, above all, does not permit excuses.

The point is maybe worth making after Woods' failure to pull off the historic challenge of winning three consecutive Green Jackets – and the ensuing charge that in his disappointment he shifted the blame to his New Zealand caddie, Steve Williams.

The whole point of Tiger's place in the game is that he has taken responsibility for his own career, that in golf he is ultimately "The Man".

It is one the blurred record should show is not compromised by the claim that, after making the catastrophic error of using a driver rather than a four-iron at the 350-yard third hole, he shrugged and said that Williams, who earns more than the entire All-Black back row, had talked him into the misjudgement. Few things, we know, are as pernicious as the half-truth and this is perhaps a classic case.

What Woods said quite deliberately was that Williams had indeed argued the case for accepting the bait of Augusta National's advanced tee position and attempting to drive the green. "I wanted to get the ball down to the bottom of the hill, and earlier in the week I'd had problems holding up the ball in the wind. I really wanted to play an iron but I went with Steve," said Woods. "But in the end it is the player's call and I made a mistake. Also, I didn't make a good swing."

Part of the problem was that at the previous par-five hole, which was birdied, he had produced two wonderful swings, which combined elegance and power, and made you feel that the Tiger's target of 65 – the score of the jobbing pro Len Mattiace, which carried him on a tide of ill-founded hope into the play-off with the magnificently committed new champion, Mike Weir – was, if not a formality, something which could be reasonably anticipated as the bouquet of an expensive Burgundy.

Unfortunately, this wasn't vintage Woods. This was a guy confronting his own human condition. Some days you call up the gods and they are not in the office. Nor were those working on behalf of the eventually tragic figure of Mattiace. They clocked off the moment his nerve began to erode on the 18th tee.

Their absence left Mattiace with a lifetime of regrets. For Tiger it was simply a punctuation mark injected into the glory. When he returned to his lair in Florida, he could reflect that his feat of getting back into the tournament, and contention, after being obliged to get up and down from a sand trap to make the cut, was in itself something to augment his legend. It was quite remarkable – and no cause for any spreading of blame. This is why, no doubt, he didn't try to do that.

The former Masters champion and his friend Mark O'Meara, who in the void left by the departure of Woods' coach, Butch Harmon is acting as chief adviser, probably provided the soundest perspective when he said: "We think Tiger is perfect. Well, he's as close as any golfer has ever been to perfect, but he's not perfect. He has a bad day, and a bad week, every now and then. The difference is, deep down, it doesn't bother him."

By the time he had draped the Green Jacket on his latest successor, the wholly admirable Canadian Weir, and received a rather touching tribute from a recipient who said it was an honour to be dressed in triumph by the game's greatest player, the Tiger was plainly in better sorts. "We can only put ourselves into position to win," he said. "If you look at any sport, you'll see the winning percentage is not very good." O'Meara nodded his agreement and said: "He'll play great again."

So too will the wonderfully compact and steely Canuck. Despite his modestly powered game, Weir's win was not such a surprise in the locker room. Twice he had beaten the toughest of fields to land the AmEx World Championship and US Tour Championship, and the idea that he would disappear after losing his lead in the third round was a notion of the galleries rather than the trenches.

"I had a clear idea of what I had to do over the last holes - and at every point of the tournament I felt I was in with a chance," said the 32-year-old who, like all Canadians, has lived his life under the shadow of a giant and somewhat overpowering neighbour.

Weir, a close friend of Wayne "The Great One" Gretzky, was being fêted at a big hockey game in Toronto last night. On Sunday night, he took a phone call from the Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien. He is the first Canadian to win a major title, and his reaction was typical of a nation which usually leaves the shouting to others, especially the Americans. "I just hope some kid back home will be inspired by this," he said.

When it came to the play-off there could only be one winner. Mattiace was awash with emotion – later he admitted, "I do cry a lot" – and when the crowd roared for Weir's nerveless putt on the 18th hole they plainly took away part of Mattiace's stomach.

On the circuit he is known, despite two tournaments wins, as a classic "choker". It is a savage charge, and much used in North America – just ask Greg Norman – but sadly Mattiace was true to every line of the harsh script.

He had his day of days shooting the 65 so coveted by the Tiger. Coming from the pack, everything he did was charmed until he waited and fidgeted while Weir came up the last few holes announcing the mettle of a champion. "I cried," explained the amiable Mattiace, "because when you are competing at this level a lot of emotions build up. When it is over, they have to go somewhere. I wasn't crying over the play-off result. Mostly, it was because I had such a day, when all my hopes seemed to be fulfilled. I thought of those days when I came here 15 years ago to play the Masters because I was member of the Walker Cup team. I was so nervous I could hardly draw breath.

"But that was just the effect of the Masters. I believed in myself. I was a college stallion who was going to just storm into the pros and win tournaments. Well, I had to wait a long time for that and for what happened today. I don't have regrets. This was a great day, and I have a great life."

For Weir it was a day when he passed that fine line which separates talented and dedicated players from true champions. For the Tiger it was a pause. One not to cry over. Or, least of all, to try to excuse.