(Published April 9, 2007, in The Charlotte Observer and on charlotte.com. All rights reserved).
 
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, wasn't the best golfer on his high school team. He wasn't the best golfer on his college team. When he played a practice round with Michelle Wie in 2006, she outdrove him. Frequently.

Johnson's closing 69 was a model of perseverance on Easter Sunday, as he slew the giant that is Tiger Woods. But his entire career has been a model of perseverance, and he made Sunday into a feel-good story at one of the most unusual Masters in history.

Johnson is from Iowa, the son of a chiropractor. He didn't have any money when he graduated from Drake in 1998, so a group of members at Elmcrest Country Club in Cedar Rapids helped him. They backed him financially as he tried to make it in golf's minor leagues, more out of goodwill than a likely return on the investment.

But Johnson got better every year. He remembers winning tournaments where the first-place check was $3,000. He remembers winning tournaments where a Hooters girl presented the check and the chicken wings were all-you-can-eat.

Johnson won $1,305,000 for his Masters victory, only his second on the PGA Tour. Zach attacked all day, never faltering despite knowing Woods was stalking him, even when Tiger made the Augusta National grounds shake with an eagle at No. 13.

Johnson was completely calm until he finished his round and went to his family to be congratulated. Then he turned into a spigot. He hugged and kissed his wife, Kim, and their 14-week-old son. That set something off.

"I was just an emotional wreck," he said. "I was a slob."

He would later cry during his TV interview with CBS. And during his green-jacket ceremony with the Augusta National members. And during his news conference. Anything could restart the flow of tears -- a mention of his high school in Iowa was enough to do it once.

It was touching. Ordinary guy, extraordinary day, and all a little too much for him by the end.

But not on the golf course. There, he was golden. Johnson's birdie at the par-3 16th -- a gorgeous 6-iron, followed by an eight-foot putt -- turned out to be the two shots Tiger couldn't match.

Like Tiger, Johnson is 31 years old. Unlike Tiger, Johnson would never get stopped in an airport unless someone mistook him for a baggage handler. He is a "normal guy," as he kept saying Sunday, and he looks it -- 5-foot-11, 160 pounds, going a little bald on top.
The fact that his second win on the PGA Tour came on Easter had significance to Johnson, a devout Christian. "I felt like there was certainly another power that was walking with me and guiding me," he said.

Johnson walked the Masters in 2001 -- as a spectator at one of the practice rounds. He was 25 then, in the minor leagues, and had scored a ticket from his future playing partner Sunday, Augusta's Vaughn Taylor.

"My mouth was agape," Johnson said.
In a prescient interview, Athlons magazine asked Johnson a few months ago what he would serve for the 2008 Champions dinner if his next victory came in the 2007 Masters. Pork chops and sweet corn, he replied, fixed by either his mother or his wife.
Sweet corn? Sweet story.