Phil Mickelson lost then won over two thankful hearts for his genrosity. Tiger Woods won yet again in the desert while Ernie Els lost to him yet again. And the New England Patriots lost for the first time in more than a year. What does all this winning and losing mean? Only our Grant Boone knows for sure.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

First off, two thumbs up to Phil Mickelson's latest production, "Meet the Focklers." Heartwarming with plenty of thrills, even a surprise ending.

Mickelson had two goals going into the final round of the FBR Open in Scottsdale Sunday: 1) find a father and son to whom he could give a pair of tickets to the Super Bowl later that evening in Glendale, about 30 minutes away; and 2) make up the four shots by which he trailed J.B. Holmes. He did both.

On the third hole, Mickelson directed his trusty sidekick, Jim "Bones" MacKay, to present, Wonka-style, the golden tickets to 11-year-old Drew Fockler (whose Phil-friendly Callaway cap apparently sealed the deal) and his father, John. Mickelson then accomplished his second mission with three birdies on his last six holes to shoot 67 and post 14 under.

It was good enough for a one-stroke lead until Holmes rewrote the final scene. Looking as shaky as Roger Clemens with a specimen cup for most of the back nine, Holmes somehow rebounded from a par 5 bogey at 15 and a short miss at 17 to birdie the 18th in regulation and again in a playoff to beat Mickelson and win the tournament for the second time in three years.

It wasn't the only script rewritten Sunday. There were plot twists from morning 'til night, initially in the UAE, then the FBR, and even XLII. In the United Arab Emirates, Tiger Woods followed up his resounding victory at the Buick Invitational with an opening round 65 and a two-shot lead in the Dubai Desert Classic. But he stalled out at 7 under the next two days and found himself trailing Ernie Els by four going into the final round.

I'd planned to spend Super Bowl Sunday afternoon watching the goings-on in Scottsdale while writing a condign critique of what I figured would be Woods' downfall in Dubai to balance the effusive encomia heaped upon him at Torrey Pines. Everyone was so quick to extrapolate the Buick win into preposterous assumptions of what Woods will achieve this year - The Grand Slam! Nelson's 11 straight! Finding Bin Laden! - it would be only fair, I reasoned, to sufficiently note his mortality if and when he didn't get it done in the desert.

Enter Sandman.

Using heavy metal to drive the par 4 17th and impossibly pure putting, Woods erased a four-shot deficit at the turn with a back nine 31, putting the tournament to bed by draining a downhill, 25-footer on the 18th to win by one. Woods' fifth birdie in his final seven holes made Ernie wonder what Els is new while keeping Tiger's 2008 record unblemished through two events.

While Woods' competitive campaign is just starting, the New England Patriots were across town from the FBR at Super Bowl 42, trying to finish off the NFL's first-ever 19-0 season. Football scribes spent Sunday afternoon wondering not if New England would beat the New York Giants, but by how much and whether or not this would go down as the greatest achievement in the history of team sports.

Then the game started. Patriots QB Tom Brady was hit more times than a Vegas dealer's soft 17 and, despite engineering a late touchdown drive that briefly put his team on top, was eventually upstaged by Eli Manning's last-minute heroics as the G-Men ruined New England's perfectly good season by winning what is at least one of the greatest Super Bowls ever.

If XLII's defining play was David Tyree's sticky-fingered snatch in the closing seconds, the enduring image outside the lines was the one of losing coach Bill Belichick slithering out of the stadium with one second left on the clock. For those of us who long ago tired of Belichick's glaring absence of sportsmanship and who increasingly question just how much of an advantage this putative genius has gained through the years via verboten video, it was an exit utterly reflective of his arrogance.

The only one perfect in the greater Phoenix area Sunday was David Feherty of CBS. As they showed a shot of the Super Bowl venue in the distance during the FBR telecast, host Jim Nantz asked his coterie of commentators for predictions. Everyone but Feherty took the Pats. But he didn't just get the team right. Feherty also nailed the final score, noting he'd recently had a lovely dinner with the Manning family and that he thought the Giants would win by the very score they did, 17-14. Feherty's just one off-the-cuff, racially-charged conspiracy theory away from becoming CBS' next Jimmy the Greek.

Seriously, what does it say about the state of American sports media that the only one to accurately foretell this country's single-biggest sporting event is an Irish golf announcer? Even more reason for all of us to tap the brakes when talking about the greatest this and that of all time. Though he was brilliant at the Buick and dazzling in Dubai, what say we let Woods - and the other great athletes of our time - do whatever they're going to do and let the course of time tell us how great those feats were in the greater context of history. Here's guessing history will judge Woods just fine, but what's the rush?

Remember the Sunday school lesson that New York's NFC football team and Phil Mickelson taught us in Phoenix about surprise endings:

(pausing for Belichick to leave)

Some days you're the Giant, and some days you're Goliath.

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. An archive of his columns can be found here. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.