“I played my heart out, and it didn’t work,” Furyk said.

Padraig Harrington played bogey-free for 15 holes for a share of the lead, then bogeyed the last three for a 71 to finish fifth, two shots behind. Kenneth Ferrie of England was tied with Mickelson starting the final round and stayed with him for nine holes before he crashed to a 39 on the back nine and shot 76.

“I feel for Phil,” Ogilvy said. “He’s won a few majors recently, so I can take one away.”

He never imagined it would happen like this. No one did. Mickelson had been so dominant in the majors, and had poured so much into studying ever nook and cranny at Winged Foot, that it appeared he would win this the way Woods often captures majors — making the fewest mistakes in the final round.

But he saved a whopper for the 72nd hole.

“I came out here a week or two ago in the evenings, just spending the evenings on the last four holes, thinking I’d just have to make four pars, thinking there was a good chance if I could make four pars on Sunday, I could do it,” he said.

Ogilvy earned $1.225 million for his first major, and his third career victory on the PGA Tour, and it should be enough to put him into the top 10 in the world ranking.

He became the first Aussie to win a major since Steve Elkington in the 1995 PGA Championship, and Ogilvy showed he can never be counted out. When he won the Match Play Championship at La Costa, he set a record by winning four consecutive matches in extra holes.

This was about survival from the start, even if the New Yorkers were so raucous they thought Lefty only needed to show up.

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But he still had to hit the shots, and Mickelson didn’t hit a fairway until the eighth hole. The most damaging miss came on the par-5 fifth hole, easily reachable in two. Mickelson hit into the face of a bunker, hit into the rough, than tried to dig it out with a 4-wood and moved it about a yard. He did well to make bogey.

By then, the U.S. Open was, indeed, wide open.

As the tournament headed into the final two hours, four players were tied top the leaderboard. It wasn’t a matter of who would shift into drive, but who could get out of reverse.

Mickelson did both, but then stepped on the gas and drove over the edge.

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