Bad decisions on 18 costly for Mickelson and Montgomerie

MAMARONECK, N.Y. -- Colin Montgomerie needed only to execute one easy shot to stay in the hunt for his first major. Phil Mickelson was one decent decision away from winning his fourth.

Neither came through Sunday on the final hole of the U.S. Open. And once again, the golf world was reminded again why Montgomerie and Mickelson, despite all their success, could very well always be known just as well for their shortcomings.

"I had it right in my hands and I let it go," Mickelson said.

Maybe the most shocking thing about these two final-hole collapses was that they didn't have as much to do with Winged Foot -- the ridiculously unforgiving course that produced the first above-par winner at a U.S. Open since 1985 -- as they did with the players' own silly mistakes.

Montgomerie headed into the 72nd hole tied with Mickelson after arguably the best putt of his tortured major career -- a 75-footer that snaked in for birdie. He followed by hitting a perfect drive down the right side of the 18th fairway.

Montgomerie was 172 yards from the hole with a perfect stance, a perfect lie and a perfect angle into the green. With Mickelson listing behind him, all the Scot needed to do was hit what should have been a routine shot into the green, two-putt, get out with par and wait a while, maybe for a win, or almost certainly for a playoff.

His big mistake: At the last minute, he traded in his 6-iron for a 7, figuring the adrenaline would give him the extra 10 yards to get the ball on the middle of the green.

The ball fell about 10 yards short, into the bunker.

"It was a poor shot, there's no question about that, and I put myself in a poor position," Montgomerie said.

Though he'd been getting up and down all day, it wasn't to be this time. With a double-bogey 6, he was out of contention, slumping off the course 0-for-58 in the majors.

On most days, Montgomerie's meltdown would have been the talk of the tournament.

But there was another, even uglier, fiasco still to come from Mickelson.

At 4 over and needing a safe par on 18 to win his third straight major, or a bogey to guarantee a playoff against Geoff Ogilvy, Mickelson could have played it safe.

In fact, he insisted he was playing it safe when he grabbed his driver to hit "my bread-and-butter shot, which is just a big, fadey, carve-slice" down the 18th fairway. It was more slice than carve, however, and it came to rest close to the hospitality tents known as the Champion's Pavilion.

Others might have taken a smaller club and gone for accuracy off the tee.

"I carried only a 4-wood," Mickelson said. "I felt like if I hit 4-wood and missed the fairway, I'd be too far back to be able to chase one down there."

He'll never know.

He did, however, regret his decision to try to slice the ball back around a tree and toward the green on his next shot, which was really his undoing. The ball started slicing too soon and hit a tree branch. In all, it went forward about 25 yards, leaving him in desperation mode.

"Obviously, in hindsight, if I hit it in the gallery and it doesn't cut, I'm fine," Lefty said of the untaken option to hit straight out and get a free drop in the rough near the grandstand.

The rest of it played out like a typical Mickelson tragedy. Third shot plugged into the bunker. Fourth shot goes over the green. Fifth shot -- the one that would have forced the playoff -- comes from the rough near the green and isn't close. Sixth shot falls and puts him in a three-way tie for second.

Montgomerie and Mickelson now have nine second-place finishes in the majors between them.