Mike Celizic

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. - You wanted drama? You got it. You wanted excitement? Got that, too.

A great golf course that finally showed its teeth? Check.

A gallery hero flogging his way into contention? Absolutely.

I said back on Thursday, when the monsoons were shutting down the first round of the 109th U.S. Open at Bethpage Black that this would be an epic tournament. Somewhere in the middle of things, when the rounds were being doled out in dribbles, my faith started to waver. On Sunday, Bethpage was simply too easy as a guy in checked pants and a painter's cap somehow got his score down to 11 under on one of the toughest courses in the world.

But by the end of the round, Ricky Barnes had given three of those strokes back. And on Monday, Bethpage punched back when Lefty charged and Tiger was beaten back and David Duval dared and Barnes bled and Lucas Glover finally fell into the arms of his wife after walking off the 18th green with a two-stroke victory and one of the more improbable Open wins of all time.

This was grand theater of the type that only golf seems able to deliver. It was like an auto race in cars tended by mechanics who forgot to tighten all the bolts. Things kept falling off and contestants kept spinning off course at every turn.

But in golf, even a spectacular crash-and-burn takes days to unfold. That’s how it was with Barnes. You saw it coming on the back nine Sunday, then watched it cascade over the front nine Monday, a slow-motion avalanche of bad shots and bad luck and bad nerves.

You figured Barnes would realize who he was and what he was trying to do at some point, and he did. Yet he pulled it back together and darned near pushed Glover into a playoff. The man who’d never won anything didn’t win the tournament, but he went down swinging. The fact that some of the swings looked like something he found at a garage sale doesn’t make it any less dramatic.

So there’s no knock on him or any question about his intestinal fortitude. It’s just what happens to guys who are trying to learn how to win for the first time on the biggest stage there is. It’s not the idea place to learn how to control your nerves.

Glover had won only one pro tournament before Bethpage, and that was five years ago. But at least he knew what it feels like to win. And he remembered the feeling with no time to spare.

Video   What went wrong with Tiger June 22: A breakdown of what Tiger did wrong during the U.S. Open and then Tiger talks about a dissapointing tournament.

For a long time, it looked as if this tournament wouldn’t be won but lost. Various golfers made as if they were going to do something big. Tiger kept threatening to make a move, but could never sustain a birdie run. Hunter Mahan and Ross Fisher took turns creeping to within a chip shot of the leaders, but they, too, could not sustain it.

Duval battled incredibly hard, overcoming an early triple-bogey and several incredibly wild shots to almost — but not quite — grab a piece of the lead.

And then there was Mickelson, the darling the New York mob wanted to win and the sentimental favorite. He played with a pink ribbon on his cap every day, put there to symbolize the battle with breast cancer, a battle his wife, Amy, is fighting right now.

Mickelson had said before the tournament began that Amy was sending him notes and text messages and e-mails to tell him how cheering it would be for her to have a big silver trophy in her hospital room when she starts treatment in July. Breast cancer has touched so many and the Mickelsons are so popular on tour, it was impossible to find anyone who wasn’t rooting for him.