Right up to its fairly humdrum finish Sunday, the 71st Masters Tournament was about what didn't happen, the lasting memory sure to be the abject lack of memories.

Nobody broke par for the tournament. Nobody brought the signature energy to Augusta National Golf Club, even on a day when Tiger Woods came from behind to take the lead briefly on Sunday in a major championship but couldn't hold it.

In the end, nobody could stop understated Zach Johnson from sneaking out of a crowd on the back nine and into the green jacket after never finishing higher than 17th in a major before this week.

The best player ever produced by Drake University joined golf's most elite group, earning his Masters title by shooting 2-under par on the back nine and 69 on Sunday.

It was the kind of play typical of a champion at Augusta, right down to the three birdies in four holes in the round's final hours and the deft par save on the last hole. It just wasn't the theater that usually comes out of this place and this week.

This will never be remembered as one of the greatest Masters.

The temperatures were too low and the scoring too high. The atmosphere was too subdued and the tournament's personality too hard to identify for three days.

It was sort of like a garden variety Tour event - with traffic.

One good day at the end wasn't going to wipe all that away.

But this could turn out to be one of the most important Masters, its impact measured less by records than the potential reaction to it.

Because this week, Augusta National found out how hard is too hard.

For seven years, the people who run the Masters have been trying to stay ahead of the technological freight train that has been ripping through golf. They've added distance, rough and trees to the course to combat players' added length and keep scores from plummeting.

But for seven years in a row, soft conditions disguised the full scope of their efforts. So, with no rain in the forecast this time, everyone was expecting the tough test we all knew Augusta could now be.

It was just too much.

They had the course right on the edge of impossible for the first two rounds. And when the weather turned bitter on the weekend, they couldn't get it back, even with watered greens, advanced tees and central pin positions.

So after two hard days that you count on in a major came a third day nobody could have been ready for. That led to a whole week when saving par was more critical than making birdies, when over-par scores turned the big leaderboards into sports' newest green monsters, and when holding on to leads with both hands was more likely than anyone making a run.

And that's not the Masters.

It wasn't after two days, when the cut came at 8-over par and the lead was barely under par.

It wasn't on Saturday, when Lucas Glover bogeyed the seventh hole and moved up the leaderboard.

And it wasn't on Sunday, when a guy who spent five years on the Hooters Tour earned the right to set the menu at next year's Champions Dinner.

The good news is, what we saw this week isn't what the Masters will be next year, either.

Never mind the outcry about how the many changes have turned this tournament into a U.S. Open. It played like one this week, but it won't always.

Nobody is better at manipulating a course than Augusta National, and it will happen now. The course guardians will move forward with the valuable information that this week provided, into a future that will surely restore this tournament's dynamic past and dramatic finishes.

Even with all its flaws, though, this tournament already has left positive marks on Augusta.

On Thursday, one of the warmest moments of any Masters returned when Arnold Palmer debuted as the new honorary starter, the game's most beloved figure assuming this tournament's sweetest role.

A day earlier, the club announced it was restoring the popular exemption to weekly winners on the PGA Tour, thereby bringing the refrain "I'm going to Augusta" back to trophy ceremonies everywhere.

And all the way through, Billy Payne had a fine first tournament week as Augusta's chairman. He seemed both interested in and capable of maintaining the balance of tradition and progress that defines the club and its tournament.

Good thing, too, because that's his job now. It just got a little easier this week, when a lot that happened at Augusta National and all that didn't happen in this Masters presented a clear suggestion for where both should go from here.

Reach Tim Guidera at (912) 652-0352.