It's interesting, all this praise for Phil Mickelson, not that it's undeserved. Not too long ago, he was everyone's whipping boy, the anti-Tiger if you will. Knocked for the way he played, knocked for the way he acted.

Four years ago, GQ magazine made him No. 8, and the only golfer, in its audacious article of the Ten Most Hated Athletes, one of those arbitrary lists designed to be outrageous if not accurate.

Whatever Mickelson did, from wearing that beeper during the 1999 U.S. Open when wife Amy was expecting the couple's first child to the solicitous manner he answered questions to that mis-played 72nd hole in the 2006 Open; when the double-bogey left him muttering to himself and left us bewildered, was used against Phil.

"Phil Mickelson,'' one of those anonymous sources told GQ in the 2006 story, "literally has no friends out there. He annoys everybody.''

There were 40,000 people Sunday at Augusta who didn't seem at all annoyed. They were elated. And emotional. Everyone at the Masters appeared to be his friend. Except maybe Tiger, who as always concentrated on Tiger.

The basic contention about Mickelson was that he was a phony, which now seems ironic. If there was someone who turned out to be less than what we perceived, it was Tiger.

Woods was the one who masked a secret. The Mickelson we got was the Mickelson we saw, maybe too saccharine for the critics but quite transparent in the way he ran his life.

Phil, indeed used his leverage on Tour, but nobody used leverage to the extent of Tiger, who early in his career told the big shots down at PGA Tour headquarters it would be his way or it would be the European Tour. Then Woods and Mickelson each demanded the golfing season end before October or else. It now ends before October.

Tiger and Mickelson grew up six years and 80 miles apart in southern California , but except for the location and the fact they both play at the highest level, they have little in common. Tiger is an introvert. Phil outgoing.

It bothers some that Mickelson plays without a scowl, waving at the fans who yell his name, eating up the approval. Tiger remains oblivious to anything, as the Scots say, other than the small patch of grass upon which his ball sits. Although at the Masters, Phil's Masters, Tiger did acknowledge the cheers.

Woods' domination of the Tour is undeniable. No one in the history of the sport has won as much as quickly as Tiger. Or with as much impact. He shattered barriers. He shattered records. Everything meaningful in golf came to be defined by a single word: Tiger.

Surely Mickelson burned inwardly as Woods became The Man. This frequently has been pointed out. In the early 1990s, Mickelson and Ernie Els were hailed as golf's next great players. In 1996, however, along came Tiger, and nothing has been the same since.

Phil is outwardly gracious when asked about Tiger's success, affirming him as the world No. 1.  He's agreed that, in the previous five months, with Woods not around, golf was poorer in his absence.

"We need Tiger,'' Mickelson said more than once over the past few weeks.

We also need Phil. If Tiger gave golf a new face, Mickelson gives it a new smile. Of course a man whose wife is fighting so hard against breast cancer, as is Amy Mickelson - and the chemo has taken a toll the past eight months - would elicit anyone's best wishes. But it's more than that.

Golf is a game built on personalities, and rivalries even if the subjects would tell us no rivalry. Hogan vs. Snead, Palmer vs. Nicklaus, Mickelson vs. Woods, has been the stuff of headlines and Nielsen ratings. Masters telecasts over the weekend on CBS, for example, drew the largest audience in nine years.

Nobody paid much attention to the game in January, February or March. Then, on a weekend in April, with Phil and Tiger in the sunlight, the world of golf changed dramatically.

That's all we cared about, all we discussed. Even Tuesday, nearly 48 hours after the final putt, and appropriately it was a birdie by Mickelson, hosts of sports talk shows still were hyperventilating about the Masters.

Out in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jerry Rice, the football guy, is now a golf pro and will play in a Nationwide Tour event. This week, he said he was so inspired by watching Mickelson that he grabbed his clubs and went immediately to a driving range.

Phil has made the game exciting once more. Phony? Baloney!