Thrilling Rounds Whet Appetites for Rematch Between Mickelson and Woods

Perhaps the most compelling question to emerge in the wake of Phil Mickelson’s truly shining moment at the Masters and Tiger Woods’s reality check there is this: have the stars finally aligned for a genuine rivalry to thrive at the top of the game?

It was impossible to think otherwise as the most exciting Masters in years unfolded Sunday at Augusta National. Although Mickelson and Woods, the two best golfers of this era, were not paired head to head, there was little doubt about who the most-watched players were on golf’s biggest stage.

Mickelson has elevated his game. Woods suddenly appears vulnerable. The competition between them finally has the dynamic it has lacked, and it needs to resume, the sooner the better.

The 2010 Masters turned out to be a grand show, a sweeping 3-D spectacle with giant performances everywhere, starting with Mickelson’s in the role of leading man. The supporting actors were many and their level of play so high that some of pine trees are still trembling from the roars that shook down the echoes of bygone days.

The bravura performances by Lee Westwood and Anthony Kim, by K. J. Choi, and by the 50-year-old Fred Couples and the 60-year-old Tom Watson, were entertaining and worthy of note. But the focus necessarily shifts to the two golfers who move the needle, and to have them both in the frame at the same time, playing at a high level, is something that can lift the game’s profile and help it shake off the perception of lethargy that set in during Woods’s five-month absence.

When Woods and Mickelson will play in the same event again is unclear. Neither has committed to the Quail Hollow Championship that begins April 29 in Charlotte, N.C., an event that would be the perfect stage for a Masters rematch. Mickelson is likely to play in the Players Championship a week later at the TPC Sawgrass in Florida, another golf course where he and Woods have won.

Golf needs to provide television viewers and fans a steady diet of Mickelson and Woods at tournaments. What started last year when Mickelson beat Woods in two late-season events came into sharp focus at the Masters. There is no longer any doubt that, two months before his 40th birthday, Mickelson has elevated all parts of his game to the extent that he can beat Woods even if he is underperforming in one area.

And Woods, eight months shy of his 35th birthday, has not been able to make sufficient improvements to his own game to maintain the distance between himself and Mickelson and some others. Mickelson moved back into his customary No. 2 position in the World Golf Ranking after winning the Masters, but the gap between No. 2 and No. 1 has narrowed. By winning, he stepped into the elite company of the three-time Masters champions Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player and Nick Faldo, and one win behind Arnold Palmer and Woods.

This means that golf has Mickelson as a modern version of Palmer. He embodies many of Palmer’s playing traits. And in a way that no one has since the aggressive, lantern-jawed Palmer came out of Latrobe, Pa., and into living rooms across America, Mickelson has become a gallery favorite who exudes the thrill of the hunt and the willingness to go for broke.

And it has Woods as Jack Nicklaus, whose near-total mastery of all aspects of golf, from mental to physical, long game to short game, made him the standard against which all others are measured.

Setting aside Woods’s off-the-course transgressions, his mastery on the course mirrors that of Nicklaus.

Where will Woods go from here? He is repairing his image, and he is trying to get all aspects of his game ready for the United States Open in June at Pebble Beach, where he set the standard 10 years ago with a 15-stroke victory. And he wants to be ready for the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, where he won the 2000 British Open by eight strokes. And for the P.G.A. Championship in August at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis.

Woods will not be ready if he does not hone his game at some tour events between each of the majors. If Woods chooses to sit out until, say, the Memorial Tournament in early June to prepare for the United States Open two weeks later, he may not be ready for either event.

For all the concern about Woods’s on-course behavior and language, which he said he was trying to improve, restoring his once airtight game is a growing concern, one that heightens the dramatic tension and the interest in just when his next meeting with Mickelson will take place.