Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera embrace after Scott won the Masters on the second playoff hole Sunday. Associated Press

There should be a better word to describe what was witnessed Sunday in the rain at the Masters, something that can adequately cover the bright, thrilling place between tense and fun. Something not quite relaxed, but not agitated, either—just gripping the moment and enjoying it. That's the fine space that Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera occupied in the early evening in Augusta. A victory coveted and career-altering was on the line, with it a crisp green jacket and a sotto-voce cabin chat with Jim Nantz. It's a moment that's made men crumble in the twilight before. Sports is famous for moments like this, and from the misty re-tellings of iconic triumphs and collapses, there's a belief that pressurized situations like this are what sports are all about. But this isn't what sports are all about. The majority of a sporting events are not like this, not so stressful and mind-rattling and consequential—you have to be special and lucky to even encounter stakes like the ones Scott and Cabrera were facing. A lot of very good athletes never make it this far, and this is not necessarily terrible. Pressure like this unmasks people. Rewrites careers, for good and bad. It can be beautiful, but it can also be brutal.

And yet here they were, the two of them, rallying toward it, as if unfazed. If they were quaking with anxiety they did not show it. The body language was upbeat. Smiles couldn't be hidden. Cabrera and Scott looked like a pair of guys who'd walked out of a bank with a duffel bag full of $100s. Maybe they'd erased the big nerves earlier in the day, on the last hole of regulation, when both went for it and cashed in, birdieing the final hole when they had to birdie the final hole. That was icy and great, and the fact that they both had done it to force a playoff made this something special. I was home from Augusta this year—my wife and I had our first baby a couple of weeks ago; he's doing great, thanks, though his short game needs some work—and this felt like first time the 2013 tournament broke through into the living room. A Masters telecast can get choked on mystic atmospherics, and Augusta National has been a stubborn institution, but this scene with Scott and Cabrera was undeniable. This was tense. This was fun. You see why we need a new word. Fense? OK, that sounds horrible.

Scott and Cabrera met each other's game. That is what made it delightful. Golf is a game pockmarked by vivid failures; the crumblings remembered as nostalgically as the triumphs. Many a victor has merely capitalized on the unraveling of an opponent. This wasn't that. Both Scott and Cabrera were meeting the moment, excellence intertwined with excellence. Cabrera had a crack at it on the first playoff hole—a short chip rolling barely right—and then Scott stayed glued to him, parring the 18th. There was no meltdown. On the second playoff green Cabrera danced with it again; how could he be so close twice? Scott took his putt with that belly stick and there it was. A winner. Cabrera, hat removed, moved to Scott and gave him a hug that confirmed that something true and connected had unfolded. And it had. Scott's victory is substantial for several reasons: he's the first Australian to do it, it's his first major, it comes less than a year after an ugly self-destruction at the British Open. But was also memorable because of his way competition lifted it. Scott and Cabrera couldn't be more different in appearance; Cabrera, a grandfather at 43, is rumply and graying and a throwback to an era in which golfers were't such specimens; Scott, all angles and sinew, looks poured into his clothes. They are in vastly different stages of their careers—Cabrera, the 2009 Masters champion, chasing middle-aged glory; at 32 Scott was searching for a breakthrough that had been long delayed. They are men going in different directions. But Sunday night, they shared a road.

In the aftermath people talked a lot about sportsmanship and class, about the thumbs-up that Cabrera gave to Scott walking down the fairway of the second playoff hole after Scott had matched Cabrera's skillful approach. It served to remind how much sports is often regrettably about the result—who wins, who loses, who fails. But it's the feeling that occurs before the end, when it's taut and undecided and not yet cruel, which makes games so addictive and worthwhile. Cabrera and Scott seemed to appreciate this as it was happening, and that's why this 2013 tournament will live on. Adam Scott is the Masters champion, and it's a historic accomplishment. But it's the gracious duel that will be the brilliant memory.

Write to Jason Gay at