Phil Mickelson’s Saturday surge has him one shot back of Swede Peter Hanson for the lead at the Masters. Everyone’s projecting Mickelson to emerge victorious Sunday and collect his 4th green jacket (2004, 2006, 2010), which would tie him with Tiger Woods (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005). Jack Nicklaus, the greatest golfer ever, has the most (six).

South African Louis Oosthuizen is third at -7 and country boy Bubba Watson is fourth at -6. The Augusta crowd will obviously be behind Mickelson, but you’ll probably hear a smattering of fans clamoring for Americans Watson, Matt Kuchar (-4) or Hunter Mahan (-4) to win their first major.

A guy you’ll hear virtually nothing about today? Tiger Woods. His brief rise into contention at the 2011 Masters resulted in boffo ratings – GET TO A TV! HERE COMES TIGER! – but there’s no chance of that today. Even if he carded a 64 … eh, I’ll stop there. No point in twisting the knife in the rabid Tiger fanbase.

Club-kicking Tiger still hasn’t regained confidence in his putting or even off the tee. Everyone wants him to return to being the old, dominant Tiger that struck fear into golfers everywhere, but at some point, people are going to have to come to grips with the fact that it might never happen.

Tiger entered Sunday tied for 38th place, 12 shots back of Hanson.