Michael Conroy / AP

Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson weren't treated well by the 18th hole at the U.S. Open on Sunday.

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

At 4 over and needing a 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 doing just that 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. Not Phil.

“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, concede that he regretted his decision to try to slice the ball back around a tree and toward the green with a 3-iron on his next shot. That shot 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.

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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 with Montgomerie and Jim Furyk.

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

“I had it there and let it go and I cannot believe I did that,” Mickelson said, yet another time.

Surely Monty would agree.