Dan O'Neill

MEDINAH, Ill. - That hissing noise you heard as Phil Mickelson walked off the 18^th green at Medinah on Sunday was the final puff of air spent from his balloon.

“Mick the Stick” came to Medinah with high hopes. He got a waiver for his failure to show up at the British Open last month. It was explainable, or so it seemed. He has historically sucked eggs overseas. Asking the California Kid to work his magic on the on the lawns of Great Britain is like asking Luciano Pavarroti to “kick it old school.”

Lefty doesn’t do links. So he got a pass on that one and he came to Chicago bent on a jump-start, eager to show there are no lingering scars from that time in June when he shot himself in the Winged Foot. There seemed no reason he couldn’t resume his transformation from tragic Phil to fabulous Phil.

Instead, he is leaving Chicago with heavier baggage. The 72^nd hole of the U.S. Open now hangs over his head like acid rain. Denial is all he has left.

“I don’t know what to say about that,” said Mickelson, 36, who carded a final-round 74, his worst card of the week. “It was a fun week here at Medinah. It’s a great golf course and everybody had a lot of fun.”

While some grumbled about the red hue of the tournament, suggesting a leaderboard full of subpar scores is not worthy of major credentials, doesn’t do enough to separate the cream from the crud. But Mickelson didn’t buy it, and certainly didn’t use it as an excuse. Birdies are his business. He should have been swamped.

“I like the way it was set up,” he said. “You could make some birdies. If you hit some bad shots, you were going to make some bogeys. I thought there was some great play out there amongst a lot of guys and, obviously, Tiger played great golf.”

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Mickelson hit too many bad shots, sprayed the ball all over the yard. He hit only 55 percent of the fairways, 63 percent of the greens. He begged for bogeys and they finally obliged.

But, with all due apologies to George Costanza, this was supposed to be the Year of Phil. We thought as much after Mickelson won that second major in succession at Augusta in April. We were comparing Mickelson with Woods, and in a favorable way. We were looking forward to the U.S. Open and thinking there was a strong possibility of a Mickel-Slam.

Slide show   PGA Championship Top moments from Tiger's win at Medinah

And sure enough, it was there for the taking. While Woods was missing the cut, Mickelson was making hay and making us believe he had truly arrived. He was one hole — one par — from winning a third consecutive major. The golf world was about to become his oyster.