Liberal Dose of Lefty

AUGUSTA, Ga. —  It turns out the new Augusta National was no match for the new Phil Mickelson.

The Flop-Shot Artist Formerly Known as the Best Player to Never Win a Major is now simply Money, winner of two of the last three Masters and three of the last nine major tournaments -- the best run since Tiger Woods’ “Tiger Slam” in 2000-01.

If you could have TiVo-ed Masters week, watched all the hand-wringing about the lengthened golf course at the start and then skipped ahead to see one of the long-hitting top guns slipping, you would have said, “See?!” and drawn the conclusion that the little guy was aced out.

Instead the expanded course has enough room for all types, even the aging players who couldn’t reach the back of the club’s 265-yard driving range. A notorious light hitter led the field in driving in the second round, a 54-year-old made the cut, and a 46-year-old contended through the back nine Sunday.

Mickelson happened to win because he had all facets of his game working. Long, short, putter, you name it. Even though it didn’t produce a spectacular score, those who know his game called his final-round 69 the best round he has played in a major.

And Augusta National was up to its old tricks, producing a memorable Sunday.

The final round featured a leaderboard laced with the top five players in the world and a final pairing of two of the sport’s most popular players. Augusta National Chairman Hootie Johnson was so pleased with his tournament he said, “Let’s all roll to the ATL and get crunk!” (OK, so maybe he didn’t. But in a week in which Tom Lehman said, “I’m driving a car with a bullet hole. I’m hard-core,” because someone busted a cap in his Escalade, it at least seems possible.)

Yes, the 70th Masters had a little bit of everything. And when golf finishes humbling you it can also teach you. The lesson for this week was how to adapt to change. Embrace it. Accept it. Deal with it. Whatever you do, don’t gripe about it.

Mickelson stuck an extra driver -- his “draw driver” -- in the bag to counter the extra 155 yards.

Ben Crenshaw’s approach was to concentrate on his strengths: knowledge of the course and skill on the greens. That enabled him to shoot one under through two rounds and make the cut here for the first time since 1997.

And somehow Jose Maria Olazabal, ranked 103rd on the PGA Tour in driving distance last year, managed to lead everyone with a 304-yard driving average in the second round, then popped back into contention Sunday with birdie-birdie-eagle run on the back nine.

Fred Couples, three months older than Jack Nicklaus when the “46-year-old’n Bear” won his sixth Masters 20 years ago, somehow hung in until the final five holes despite playing a 31-hole day to make up for Saturday’s rain delay.

Some things haven’t changed since the first round was played at the Old Course in St. Andrews. Golf is about hitting accurate shots and making putts.

So cue the mea culpas.

“I was really critical of the changes here, but after seeing the course play like it did, especially the first two days when it was fast and dry, I might have been a little premature in my harsh criticism,” said Stewart Cink, who finished tied for 10th. “I don’t think this place is too hard. It just requires a lot of precision.”

It also helps if you don’t make things unnecessarily difficult. That might be the biggest difference in this Mickelson and the one who went 0 for his first 42 majors.

“I look back on the old Masters highlights and I watched some things that I’ve done and I’ve learned from those experiences,” Mickelson said.

He learned from a double bogey in 1995 when he chipped instead of putted from off the sixth green. That cost him a shot at the title. He learned a long putting stroke doesn’t work on these fast surfaces. He learned that it’s OK to take a par on the par-five fifth hole -- it’s much better than the six or seven you can draw by pushing too hard for a birdie.

“Things like that, I’ve picked up over the years,” Mickelson said. “But it’s not something that, you know, you could just cram that knowledge in. It just takes a while.”

To his credit, he never went haywire with his old level, and for a while even embraced his need to do something about it as a motivational tool. But he’s the first to say, “Three for nine sounds better, huh?”

This new Mickelson is all right. “I’m certainly a lot cheerier,” he said.

Meanwhile, amid all this newness, it was somehow reassuring to see Amen Corner come into play. You might not win championships on 11, 12 and 13, but you sure can lose them there.

Like an angry dog, holes 11 and 12 took a bite out of everyone on the leaderboard who passed by in the final round except Mickelson and Vijay Singh, who both escaped without at least one bogey.

“You know, I’d like to say one thing about the changes real quick,” Mickelson said. “I really like ‘em.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande, go to latimes.com/adandeblog