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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — When Lucas Glover won his first Tour event at Disney in 2005, he was the game's hot new thing.
He looked likely to make the 2006 U.S. Ryder Cup team. He was a star. Everybody loved him. And then they didn't.
No more victories followed, and Glover, now 29, found himself written off. By last September, after finishing tied for 13th at the BMW Championship in St. Louis, he'd had it. Knowing his Tour card was secure for 2009, Glover walked away from the game.
"It was the best thing career-wise I've ever done," said Glover, who returned to the Tour refreshed and refocused in 2009, and won the rain-delayed U.S. Open with a three-over-par 73 (four-under total) at Bethpage Black on Monday.
"I was not playing well enough to keep playing and feel like I could be happy on the golf course," Glover added. "I was taking it home and I wasn't myself."
Not a year later, Glover is taking home one of the most coveted trophies in golf.
He won by two over a threesome that included a resurgent David Duval (71), sentimental favorite Phil Mickelson (70) and the suddenly wild 54-hole leader Ricky Barnes, who rallied somewhat after stumbling with a front-nine 40 to card a 76.
"I put myself in a great position to close it out," Mickelson said, but as with so many other U.S. Opens, he couldn't get it done.
After making a rousing eagle on the par-5 13th hole, he was at four under for the tournament, seemingly headed for an emotional triumph. His wife, Amy, is about to begin treatment for breast cancer, and an Open trophy is one of the few not already on Phil's mantle.
But a victory in the year's second major will have to wait at least another year after he made two bogeys on the final four holes, three-putting from the back fringe on the par-4 15th hole and failing to get up-and-down on the par-3 17th.
Monday marked his fifth runner-up finish in the U.S. Open, but not his most painful.
"I think maybe it's more in perspective for me," he said. "There's some more important stuff going on."
Mickelson planned to take his wife and three kids on a much-needed vacation, starting Tuesday, before Amy begins treatment. He may not return to the Tour until August, he said last week.
Duval, too, looked like he was on course to win this Open after making three straight back-nine birdies to bounce back from a front-nine triple-bogey and get to three under overall.
But he, too, bogeyed 17, from almost the exact same spot as Mickelson. Duval's short par putt dipped into the hole, did a horseshoe and came back at him.
This after his tee shot nestled under the lip of a greenside bunker on the par-3 third hole, leading to a triple-bogey.
"I'm happy with how I played, but extremely disappointed," Duval said after registering his first top-10 anywhere since 2002. "I came here with no doubt in my mind I would win."
Tiger Woods shot a one-under 69 and finished tied for sixth with Hunter Mahan (72) and Soren Hansen (69), four shots back at even par.
Glover overcame his doubts in part by switching to a new putter last fall, addressing the weakest part of his game. He preached the value of patience this week and practiced it after he double-bogeyed his first hole of the tournament.
"I didn't slam a club," he said, "didn't do anything. Walked over to the second tee and said, 'Hey, it's the U.S. Open. It's going to be a long week.'"
That turned out to be an understatement. Rain cancelled play after three hours and 16 minutes Thursday, sending officials scrambling to sop up water and get 156 players through 36 holes.
The cut didn't come until Saturday, trimming the field to a manageable 60 players — the USGA's first break of the week.
Still, this was the rare major that asked not "who will win?" but "when will it end?" Seldom did players finish their day on the 18th or even 9th hole, often getting stranded in some far off corner of the course when the horn blew because of darkness, rain or both.
Contestants were whisked back to the clubhouse in white vans. (Brian Gay's driver got lost and had to radio for directions on Friday night.) Players woke up at 5 a.m. to resume rounds and tried to guess which way their mud-covered golf balls might veer on the already beastly Black course.
Glover, a lifelong Yankees fan who honeymooned in New York, is such a "Seinfeld" aficionado he could probably liken the Bethpage Black zaniness to a specific episode. But this Open was more like a mash-up of "Groundhog Day" and "Waterworld."
It seemed as if Duval might win the battle of patience — he has battled a slump for most of the last seven years, after all. But Glover and Barnes had too much of a lead over the chase pack going into the final round, which began late Sunday before USGA officials called players off the course in the dusk at 8 p.m.
Glover seemed to shoot himself out of it on the front nine in both the third and fourth rounds, but on Sunday he fired a three-under 32 on the back to salvage his third round, and on Monday he shot even par on the back nine to win.
His wife and high school sweetheart, Jennifer, stood behind the 18th green. Glover's parents were there, as were two cousins and a friend, who had left North Carolina at 9:30 p.m. Sunday and driven all night to get to the course by 8:50 a.m. Monday. They bought tickets on eBay for $40 apiece and wore homemade T-shirts with Glover's picture on them.
"Thanks guys," Glover quipped at the trophy ceremony. "I'll pay for your gas."
But he blinked back tears later, when he was asked about a man who was not here, his longtime swing coach Dick Harmon. Glover and others were rocked when Harmon died unexpectedly in 2006. Glover was a pallbearer and spoke at the funeral.
"Probably pretty happy," Glover said, when asked what Dick would have thought of the day.
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