June18 toughoakmont

The bear that wandered out on the seventh hole Sunday morning at Oakmont Country Club got away just in time. Just like Phil Mickelson so famously predicted, danger lurked everywhere.

Mickelson wasn’t around for the weekend, though he was surely watching at home with a smile on his face as the carnage unfolded on a hot and sticky afternoon before Angel Cabrera finally emerged as a most unlikely US Open champion.

Before that happened, the third round leader gagged his way to a triple bogey on the first hole and was never heard of again. The best player in the world looked like a 10-handicapper when he bladed a chip over a green, chunked the next one back and nearly cost himself any chance.

Five different times players had at least a share of the lead only to fall by the wayside by making double bogey or worse.

They headed toward the player’s parking lot muttering among themselves about another typical US Golf Association setup and another familiar result. The best player this week had finally been identified, but even he could only get within five strokes of par by the time it mercifully ended on an anti-climatic tap-in by Tiger Woods.

Oakmont had always been billed as one of the toughest Open courses ever. But those who spent the last four days hacking out of the thick rough and trying to keep their balls on greens so slick they looked oily were having trouble comprehending just how tough.

Those hoping to join Cabrera in the elite club of major championship winners don’t have a whole lot to look forward to. Players head for Scotland next month for the British Open at Carnoustie, where Jean Van de Velde’s meltdown eclipsed anything seen here this week.

Oakmont might have been brutal, but Carnoustie is widely regarded to have been the toughest major championship test ever when the British was last played there in 1999.

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