U.S. OPEn \ Notebook

What if? No golf tournament ends without a number of players able to say “What if?” over one hole or one swing. Hunter Mahan may have the best reason to ask that question after the U.S. Open. Mahan’s ball was sitting in the fairway after his tee shot on the par-4 16th at Bethpage Black. He was 2 under par for tournament, just one stroke out of the lead. But a great swing produced a terrible result and effectively ended his chance at his first major championship. “We had a good number. I think it was like 172,” Mahan said. “Had an 8-iron downwind and just flushed it.” If Mahan’s ball had hit any part of the green, he would have been looking at a makable birdie putt, but the ball hit the flag stick — and hit it squarely. “I hit that thing pretty hard and it ricocheted off the green,” he said. “That happens. It’s a U.S. Open. You’re going to get stuff like that. The green is just fast. I thought I hit a pretty good 5-wood runner up there, but the green was pretty fast.” Instead of a chance at tying for the lead, Mahan made a bogey. Then he had another on the par-3 17th when his birdie attempt caught a ridge and left him a long par putt. He finished tied for sixth at even par, four strokes behind champion Lucas Glover.

Same money: The total purse for the tournament was $7.5 million, the first time since 1981 there was not an increase from the previous year. Glover received $1.35 million as the champion and Fred Funk, who finished last among the 60 players making the 36-hole cut, earned $19,921.

Big putt: Ricky Barnes’ missed birdie putt on the 18th hole wound up costing him $250,170. Make it and he would have finished second alone at 277 and would have won $810,000. Instead, he finished in a three-way for second with Phil Mickelson and David Duval and won $559,830.

Grandpa knew: Dick Hendley introduced his grandson Lucas Glover to golf at age 3. Six years later, he brought him to the late Dick Harmon to teach him the game. It all paid off on Monday. “I’m floating on air,” Hendley said from Greer, S.C. He and his 29-year-old grandson talked two weekends ago. “I watched him chip and putt and thought he was in a good frame of mind,” Hendley said of Glover’s Open performance.

Tracking Tiger: Since Curtis Strange repeated as Open champion in 1989, no defending champion had finished in the top 10 until Tiger Woods this year.

Woods was seeking his fourth Open title, which would have tied him for the record with Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus.

His final-round 69 put him in a tie for sixth at even-par 280. In his other defenses, he tied for 12th at Southern Hills in 2001 and tied for 20th at Olympia Fields in 2003.

When Woods won the Open at Bethpage Black in 2002, he was the only player to break par for the tournament with a 277 total. Woods had two rounds in the 60s that year, 67 in the first and 68 in the second. This year, he broke 70 three times with 69s in the second and fourth rounds sandwiching a 68.

Associated Press