They came in droves to catch a glimpse of him.

Men and women called in sick or skipped work to be there. Boys and girls played hooky on the first day of school to scurry in his wake across the rolling hills of Hamilton Golf and Country Club.

The closer they got to the man and his six-man security entourage, the more common the refrain.

"He's so ... small," was heard from the galleries following the newest Canadian idol in their national open.

It's a matter of perspective. Canadians perceive Mike Weir (Stats | Bio) as a giant. He's simultaneously hailed as the "Wayne Gretzky of golf" and the "Tiger Woods (Stats | Bio) of Canada." That kind of iconic blend conjures up images of a hero somewhat larger than real life - certainly something bigger than the 5-foot-9, 155-pound scale model of Canadian golf excellence.

"He's huge," said Barb Wagner of Burlington, Ontario, whose two sons are featured in a Royal Canadian Golf Association national advertising campaign. "He is Canadian golf."

Weir comes across much bigger on TV. He certainly did last April in Augusta. Even by Masters standards, his playoff victory over Len Mattiace (Stats | Bio) was huge. Maybe it didn't seem like such a big deal to Americans, but north of the border it was about as big as it gets.

"I put it right up there with Canada winning the Olympic gold" in hockey at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, said Ron Dann, the radio station manager in Weir's hometown of Sarnia, Ontario. "He's right up there with the hockey icons now."

A little dramatic? Well, consider these words from the executive director of that national hockey team, which ended a 50-year gold medal drought in Canada's national sport.

"What he did definitely is right up there with whatever we've done in the sport of hockey," said Gretzky. "Nobody is ever going to be able to take it away from him."

In one moment, Weir was elevated to the pinnacle of Canadian sports worship. His name and feat rank right up there with Summit Series hockey hero Paul Henderson, racing legends Jacques and Gilles Villeneuve, expatriate sprinter Donovan Bailey, Kentucky Derby stud Native Dancer and the Stanley Cup pantheon that includes Gretzky, Bobby Orr and Maurice Richard.

WEIR'S WINNING THE MASTERS is the kind of success story Americans take for granted but Canadians cherish - a humble guy doing something extraordinary. His victory at Augusta National ranks as one of those watershed sports moments that lifts an entire nation.

Mike Weir (Stats | Bio) smails after the first round of play at the Canadian Open in Hamilton, Ontario last September. (Michael Holahan/Augusta Chronicle)

And for a nation desperately in need of a feel-good boost in a year when West Nile virus, Mad Cow disease and SARS dominated the headlines and wore on the national psyche, Weir's win was just the right remedy."He comes from a small town in Ontario and steps up to the plate and wins not only a major, but from our point of view the major to win," Gretzky said. "So we're forever grateful for what Mike did. He was able to push hockey to the second page for a few days. That doesn't happen very often up there. It's something every Canadian will always remember. If you weren't a golf fan but were a sports fan, Canadians will remember it."

That was obvious enough the day after the Masters, when thousands of Canadians overran a Toronto department store to get an autograph or at least a peek at Weir. Or when almost exactly 24 hours after his final putt dropped on the 10th green at Augusta he dropped the puck before a Toronto Maple Leafs playoff game and basked in a 90-second ovation.

His fellow Canadians reacted to his green jacket as if he were hoisting the Stanley Cup.

"I knew it was a big deal, but I didn't think it would be like that much," said Weir. "It didn't really hit me until I came back and saw how excited everybody was."

In a year when fellow Canadians won the National League Cy Young Award (Eric Gagne) and the CART racing series (Paul Tracy), it was Weir who was named Canada's male athlete of the year - the third time he took that title in four years. Only Gretzky, with six, and baseball Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins, with four, have been honored more often.

Canadians regard the unassuming Weir alongside Gretzky and Woods - hockey's "Great One" and arguably the greatest golfer of all time. It's a strange fit, considering Gretzky and Woods were prodigies who built up reputations for eventual greatness before they even reached their teens. Weir had no such pedigree, relying instead on skills that are more self-made than God-given and that required nearly three decades of toil just to get him to the PGA Tour.

Weir - with roots so pedestrian he was actually introduced to the game at a Holiday Inn - shudders at the thought of himself as a Canadian icon.

"I look at myself as just a normal person," Weir said. "I'm trying to excel at something - golf - and that happens to be it for me. I don't look at myself as any different."

But winning the Masters made him different.

Now Weir has to deal with being adored by his countrymen and with all of the distractions and expectations that come with being an icon. That he plays not only for himself but for Canada is a fact he has been conscious of since he began his career.

"I was known as maybe the next up-and coming good Canadian player, so I always kind of had that tag," he said. "There was always a little extra heat maybe being the next guy holding the mantle of Canada.

"As I've gotten older and had some success ... I think it just feels very supportive."

HAD WEIR BEEN BORN a few kilometers due west on the Michigan side of the Bluewater Bridge, he'd be just another good golfer. His major championship victory might measure him more suitably with a Tom Lehman than a Tiger Woods (Stats | Bio) - a golfer the world would respect and admire but not awe and adore.

But Weir is not American or European or Australian. He's a maple-leaf-wearing Canadian, and that makes all the difference, eh? He may reside in Utah, but he's Canadian to the core.

"We really embrace our own," said Gretzky. "We're not the biggest country in the world, but we're a very proud country."

Canada's population is roughly 30 million, and hockey is indisputably the nation's most beloved sport. The game is even featured on the back of Canada's $5 bill.

But golf easily ranks as the nation's No. 2 sporting pastime. Nearly 20 percent of the Canadian population age 12 or older plays golf - the largest per capita participation rate in the world.

The largest concentrations of golfing Canadians reside in lower Ontario, especially on the arrowhead of land that points south from Quebec among three Great Lakes - Ontario, Huron and Erie. Golf is so prominent in Canada that the King's highways that crisscross this region feature signs for golf courses at every exit the way U.S. interstates point out gas, food and lodging.

"We're parallel in line with Northern California," said Steve Bennett, the director of golf operations at Weir's childhood course, Huron Oaks. "Minnesota is well north of us. Not to pick on the States, but they don't know that much about Canadians. They think we live in igloos."