For Snedeker, familiarity breeds attempt to win Augusta

"It's a completely different course for the Masters," he reminded. "But there's a familiarity that comes from playing the golf course, where you can miss it, what's not a good spot to miss it. ... Despite my experience, I still missed it on 11, 12 and 13, still missed it where I wasn't supposed to."

Snedeker's grandmother ran a golf course in Missouri, and he played there during summers. His father, a former city attorney in Nashville, belonged to a country club, but Brandt said playing on hardscrabble muni courses against the hustlers was a golfing education.

As a Masters qualifier in '04 because of the Publinx win, Snedeker birdied Amen Corner. Saturday, he bogeyed the same three holes. So much for experience.

"I realized why you're supposed to bogey those holes," he said. "Because you're not supposed to be aggressive. It wasn't like I played bad. I hit a bad shot on 11 and probably deserved a bogey. But 12 wasn't really a bad shot, and on 13 I just missed it where you can't. I was trying to make birdie, and you can't fault that."

Snedeker knows who's in front of him, Immelman, the South African, and no less important who's behind him, in fifth place, at 211, Tiger Woods.

Someone wondered how Brandt could forget about Tiger.

"When I figure out how to do that," he said, then laughed, "I think I'll be able to charge some guys out here and get them to pay me. What I mean is, I don't know how.

"If he gets off to as great start tomorrow, it's going to be in everybody's head. As long as we acknowledge it and realize, hey, he's not going to be a factor on the next shot I hit, you've got a chance of overcoming it."

Snedeker, Immelman and the two players immediately behind them and immediately ahead of Tiger -- Steve Flesch and Paul Casey -- never have previously contended on the final day of a major.

"Should make for some pretty exciting golf," Snedeker said. "We haven't contended, so shoot at the pins and try to do everything we've been doing and not back our way into this thing. When you have that many guys around the lead and the No. 1 player in the world right there, too, you've got to know how to make birdies down the stretch."

Brandt Snedeker knows how. He's done it as an amateur. He did it Saturday. It's just that he's never had the chance in the final round of the Masters.