US Open Review: Rise of Rose, Everyone Loves Phil

Guest article from Derek Clements looking back at the 2013 US Open.

HE WANTED it so much that it hurt. And the thousands of fans who followed him at Merion, along with millions more at home, felt his pain as it became increasingly clear that, on his 43rd birthday, the most popular Dad on the PGA Tour was going to suffer more Father's Day misery.

Watching Phil Mickelson try to win the US Open is beginning to look like Greg Norman's hopeless quest to land The Masters. Before Merion, he had already finished second a record five times. For him, at least, there will always be the compensation of three Masters and a US PGA championship to keep him happy, but his national Open was the one he has always coveted.

Double bogeys at the third and fifth saw Lefty tumble down the leaderboard and then, wouldn't you know it, he pitched in for an eagle at the par-four 10th. Only Mickelson!!

Suddenly, he was tied for the lead with England's Justin Rose - two more different golfers you could not find. Rose is meticulous in everything he does, mechanical some would say. Mickelson is from the Arnold Palmer/Seve Ballesteros mould, prepared to risk all in search of glory. But we saw a different Mickelson at Merion, a man who chose to tackle the challenge without a driver in his bag.

It was now a four-horse race, featuring Rose, Mickelson and Jason Day, the painfully slow Australian, and Hunter Mahan, an American who is much loved but who clearly had a fashion bypass at birth.

Every time Phil hit a shot, they whooped and they hollered. You even felt that his fellow competitors wanted him to finish off the job.

It would be decided by Merion's brutal finishing holes, which had taken their toll on all the leading players in the third round. The man who could par the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th holes would be crowned US Open
champion.

Day was the first to blink, a bogey at the 14th taking him two off the lead. Then the unthinkable. The 13th, a 121-yard par three. Phil dropped a shot. Rose led by one on level par.

So much for the predictions that these players would bring the course to its knees. The men in charge of torture at the USGA must have been delighted. Not a single player under par.

One by one they faltered. Mahan's suspect short game was his undoing as Rose ground his way home, getting up and down for pars at the 17th and 18th to finish at one over par.

Mickelson was stuttering, yet somehow he remained on Rose's coat-tails. A good birdie chance came and went and then he came to the 18th, needing to achieve something nobody else had managed all weekend - a birdie. A drive into the rough, a second shot short of the green and a pitch that rolled to the back of the green. Two putts and a bogey left Mickelson on three over.

It was agony. For the sixth time he had finished second and maybe, just maybe, he will never have another chance.

So Justin Rose, the nice guy from England, had won his first major title at the age of 32. It was Rose who produced a series of stunning putts to beat Mickelson in a crucial Ryder Cup singles battle last year. But one thing you can be sure of is that Mickelson was one of the first to seek out his rival and shake him warmly by the hand. He's that sort of guy, and that's just one of the reasons that everybody loves him.

Derek Clements is a sports journalist with a particular passion for golf with over 12 years of experience covering golf and other sports including Chief Sub-Editor on the sports desk of The Sunday Times. To contact Derek email direct via [email protected]

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