Phil does it; Tiger doesn't

Waiting for the old Tiger Woods to show up - we're still waiting, by the way - the old Phil Mickelson returned Sunday at Pebble Beach in California.

It was supposed to be the Sunday when golf got Tiger all the way back, all fist pumps and red shirts on the edge of Carmel Bay. Instead, Woods added to his recent habit of playing three strong days and finishing with a whimper, and it was Mickelson who showed us what we've been missing.

It's nice to have Mickelson, 41, back, smiling and slashing, making those early-season questions about whether sunset was approaching seem as silly as they were. Obviously, Mickelson hasn't been winning as often as he did in years past, but Sunday was his 40th victory and serves as more than a hint that he has more days like it in his future.

For all the attention that has been devoted to Woods' attempt to recapture his former glory, there had been a growing suspicion that Mickelson might have lost, if not his edge, at least a measure of his intensity. But with his wife, Amy, on site and paired with Woods in the final round, Mickelson was back. He's always played golf in neon, and he did it again at Pebble Beach, turning a gray day bright.

The Masters, two months away, got a little more interesting with what Mickelson did at Pebble Beach. As for Woods, the final round was a huge disappointment. He went backward on a day when he always seemed to go the other way.

If his new swing looked OK, his body language again looked like a man fighting to contain his frustration. He missed fairways, he missed greens and he missed putts. More than anything, Woods missed an opportunity.

He'll have more, but he'll also have the scar tissue of another disappointing finish. Still, Woods is trending the right way, especially when you consider where his game has - or hasn't - been the past year or two.

For a guy who shut more doors than Master Lock, Woods is learning to do it again. It's the hardest part of tournament golf. His inability to close out his past two Sunday rounds should only remind us of how good he was because days like this Sunday never happened.

Sunday's final round at Pebble Beach was a reminder of how special Woods and Mickelson have been over the past 15 years or so. Like (Harry) Vardon and (Ted) Ray, (Ben) Hogan and (Sam) Snead and (Jack) Nicklaus and (Arnold) Palmer, they're this generation's defining pair. They arrived together on the first tee Sunday looking to recapture what they've had.

Mickelson did it. For Tiger, the quest continues.