Chris DiMarco forced a playoff against Tiger Woods, but couldn't break through for his first major win. John Biever/SI

America has a new golf hero. No, wait. I can do better than that. Golf has a new Best Player Who's Never Won a Major: Chris DiMarco.

To give him that title right now is the best compliment I can think of. There are players with better fundamental swings (like Padraig Harrington), and better-looking putting strokes (like Colin Montgomerie or Luke Donald) and longer hitters (like Sergio Garcia and Paul Casey) but there is no one with more guts and grit and staying power than DiMarco, who has challenged for three of the last five majors and was one of the few bright spots of the American Ryder Cup team last year.

Sunday, he took Tiger Woods to the wall at Augusta National, a course Woods has famously dominated. In fact, DiMarco, who was routinely outdriven by 30 yards or more throughout the final round, nearly prevented Woods from winning a fourth Masters, forcing a playoff before Woods drained a winning putt for the victory.

All you need to know about DiMarco's everyman appeal, is that as he and his family were driven in carts by Masters' officials from behind the 18th green to the press center, the crowd parted to let the carts pass and when they saw who was in the cart, they began cheering. It was almost like a wave, the shouts and whoops following the carts like the wake of a boat.

How else can you describe the 69th Masters other than to say that DiMarco played his guts out and did it when it counted most -- playing in the last group Sunday at Augusta against the greatest player of this generation, Tiger Woods?

You need to know about guts? Woods shot 31 on the first nine Saturday and trailed DiMarco by four strokes when darkness halted play. Woods began the second nine Sunday morning when play resumed by making four straight birdies -- a total of seven in a row over two days -- and blowing past DiMarco, who struggled in the early morning dampness and shot 41.

Suddenly, Woods took a three-shot lead into the final round and he's 8-for-8 when he has the lead. Well, now he's 9-for-9, but this time Woods dodged a bullet.

It figured to be Woods in a runaway, especially when he birdied the opening two holes of the fourth round. DiMarco couldn't buy a putt on the first nine but hung in there tough with immaculate iron play. DiMarco was three behind going to the ninth hole, where he was hitting a 4-iron from the rough, while Woods was going to hit a pitching wedge to the green. DiMarco hit a brilliant shot that caught the slope and curled around to kick-in range. Woods birdied the hole, too.

"That was really good shot," DiMarco said. "Tiger made birdie, too. He didn't have to do that."

The back-nine shootout was eerily similar to the 2000 PGA at Valhalla, where Woods went one-on-one against little-known Bob May ... and won that one in a playoff, too.

"Tiger has got to be exhausted," DiMarco said as darkness fell Sunday night, "Because he was in a battle today."

Said Woods, "Chris is a fighter. What else can you say? The guy got out there and grinded his way around. He's a wonderful competitor. He drives the ball extremely straight and he shot 68 today. That's some pretty good playing. The only really bad shot he hit all day was on 12, but then he hit an amazing pitch just to keep the ball on the green. He's going to be in your face all day, and I knew that. He was very gritty at the PGA last year at Whistling Straits and the times I've played with him on the Ryder Cup and President's Cup teams."

This was DiMarco's third close call in a major. He had the lead after 54 holes in last year's Masters, was paired with Phil Mickelson in the final round and tanked with a 76, ending in a tie for sixth. He was also in a three-way playoff at last year's PGA Championship with Justin Leonard and Vijay Singh -- a heartbreaker because DiMarco had a putt to win outright on the 72nd green and left it in the jaws, short. Singh, of course, won the playoff.

There's something about Augusta National that DiMarco likes. He led after each of the first two rounds at his first Masters in 2001 before finishing 10th. He tied for 12th the next year, then withdrew in 2003 after an opening 82 -- he was going to badly miss the cut and rather than return Saturday morning to play one hole and make it official, he went home to be with his kids, a gaffe he later apologized for when he realized the magnitude of it.