Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Padraig Harrington, and Colin Montgomerie all collapse coming down the stretch. Only Geoff Ogilvy survives Winged Foot and lifts the U.S Open trophy.
Johnny Miller put it perfectly when he said "you don't have to run down the last stretch on a white stallion. You can limp in and say 'thanks for the trophy'."
forgotten is how exceptional Ogilvie's pitch is on 18, especially considering that lie and the steepness of that green, PLUS the pressure. having said that, PM made possibly the worst decision of all time with his second shot. you can't blame one of the best players in the world for hitting driver off the tee, but that attempt to carve it around a tree was ill-advised.
I don't think I've ever seen so many players try desperately hard to lose in any other major, it's still an extraordinary viewing experience 13 years on!
I was there that day and I saw something I’ve never seen before. 2 minutes before teeing off it was him and Kenneth Ferris on the putting green. The putting green is very close to the first tee. But Phil wasn’t putting. He was teeing up Drivers and hitting them onto the adjacent course. Just desperately trying to find someone he could play that day. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Wish we had cell phone camera back then. There was only about 5 spectators watching this and Roger Maltbie was there. He walked with Phil/Kenneth that day. I asked him if he had ever seen anything like this before. “Hell no.”
Brian Ferris Phil was running out of gas he had been playing great golf for almost a year straight at that point, he was desperately trying to keep the momentum going. His driver had already been failing him for months, earlier this same year (2006) at the BellSouth Classic he had dominated the field playing 2 drivers (a draw driver and a fade driver) as a test for Augusta, and had won the Masters a week later employing the same 2-driver setup. But at Winged Foot he needed 13 other clubs to deal with the harsh setup of the course, so he could only afford to put one driver in the bag. He needed to find a way that week to somehow get it in play, but he just was never able to. I’m not surprised he was taking desperate measures in the final minutes before his tee time, everyone including Phil knew that he was extremely fortunate to be leading and that if he continued to drive it like that, it likely wouldn’t be good enough to win. As it turned out he continued to play like that and it was luckily good enough for 17 holes… but to not hit 4 wood at 18 was criminal, he should have played it as a 3 shot hole with 5 being the worst score he could make. I personally believe that Phil hit driver because he figured he had a better chance of hitting one driver in the fairway now than he did of getting his driver to behave for an entire day tomorrow in a playoff. But I still think laying up off the tee was the right play because even if that was Phil’s logic, he probably would at least have a better chance of making par from short of the green than he would be from the trees.
Very similar to what Van de Velde did at the 1999 Open Championship. Both had a lead on the 18th, both pulled out a driver when it was not necessary and both paid the price.
DoubleOhTheG but van de velde got very unlucky. His second shot cleared the burn and should have been fine. But it hit a grandstand and came backwards. Grandstands arent part of a course.
Mickelson (3 majors) was hot on Tiger's major winning tail (10 majors) at this point in their respective careers. Mickelson was coming off winning 2 majors in a row: the '05 PGA Championship and the '06 Masters and this would have been the 3rd leg of the potential Mickelslam. This would have been his 4th major and even though he was never great at the British, momentum is a thing and then there was the '06 PGA where he played well the first 2 days. It's very possible that if Mickelson seals the deal at this US Open, he has 5 majors at the end of '06 while Tiger could still have been stuck at 10. Instead, it ended up Phil stuck on 3 and Tiger increasing his lead to 12 winning the '06 British and PGA. This US Open result pretty much ensured Tiger of being the only dominant golfer of his era.
Matthew Peterson Phil has said many times that the big mistake wasn't actually the driver but the 2nd shot. He had 185 to the front of the green and had to hit a 3-iron cut shot around a tree and he overcut it and hit it dead smack into the tree and it moved back towards him. Amazing that he did not consider chipping out to 100yds and trying to get up and down for the win. Had he not been able to, he would have secured himself a playoff. Hindsight.
In the game of golf you need to learn and develop the ability to release tension out of your body, if you can't you may experience on of the worst melt-downs in U.S. Open history.
Worst thing to happen to Monty was his birdie on 17th . He was playing beautifully and had given himself Great birdie putts all round. Had he par in 17th he’d have definitely made his par on 18th. What a great back nine . Everyone was involved top names and one of the closest top-player Majors ever .deserving winner though he had a great game and made fantastic-pars when needed and his up and down for par on 18th was terr😊ific
M M yep it would have been his 3rd straight major victory and a chance to equal the Tiger Slam, what people were calling the Mickelslam, at Hoylake. However Mickelson not only blew this but then saw Tiger win the final 2 majors and end the year on a 6 tourney winning streak. This was the best and most realistic chance Phil or Vijay or Rory or anyone else has had to get fully on Tiger’s level.
This was the hardest us open ethier this or the 07 bc the winner was +5 winged foot had really fast greens and hard slopes and oak mint had the highest roughs like it would be impossible to get out of
Poor Phil. A part of it was probably that he was so close to winning a US Open before and just used poor judgement. Now he's probably too old to get one.
Miller was right about Mickelson though, you can't keep spraying the ball left and right and expect to win on an Open course. Phil didn't just blow it on 18, but for the whole back nine he kept on trying to outdo himself. Hitting driver time after time and he still couldn't hit a fairway. He didn't deserve to win it in the end, too many stupid decisions. Bones should have stepped in at some point to lead the way. This was Phil's best shot at the Open too.
+DanielSong39 I agree but I still think that with a one shot lead on the 72nd hole Bones should have been handing Phil a 5 wood. Play the percentage shot and give himself the best chance of putting the ball in the fairway. But yeah, he was wayward.
+cedrictrent92 The percentage shot was to hit driver and hit it straight enough to not be blocked out by the trees. If he hits it 10-20 yards off-line he can still gouge the ball close to the green and has a much better chance of getting it up and down. On a long par 4, you have to hit driver and take your chances.
DanielSong39 I disagree. If that was the percentage shot, then why did it go so far off? it's because he was missing left and right with his driver all day. If he tried something different, say a 5 wood, the chances it's not horrible is waaaayy lower.
Phil was missing with all the clubs all day. Actually he was pretty lucky to even have a chance to win. Probably should have shot 77 or worse the way he was hitting the ball.
It still would have been difficult for Phil if he hit a perfect 3wood on 18. 450 yd par 4 and par is a must. Gotta hit something long and in the fairway to get an fair par chance. Cant really go 3 iron off the tee on a 450 yd par 4 to set up a good 2 putt
If the 3 iron goes only 220 you have 230 to the green and you still have a problem. If the 3 iron goes only 220 and into the rough it's an automatic 5.
15:21 I cannot get over seeing the exact moment Phil's brain melted Completely checked out; all logic, reason, and coherent thought sucked into a black hole in his skull
I remember this well, Mickelson was the one who blew it, should have gone over the tree with a wedge and trust he got up and down, as soon as he hit the tree on the 2nd shot he had absolutely no choice but to go for it
Actually Ogilvy also collapsed down the stretch; had a 2 stroke lead in the middle of the round and made 4 bogeys coming home. Fortunately you can't make bogeys when you're done.
@@stephenmacdonald76 He bogeyed 4 of 7 holes before finishing with 4 pars, not exactly a strong finish He had the worst score of all the players who finished in the top 5 for the final 11 holes
@@DanielSong39 4 pars when it counts when you know what you have to get when the rest are collapsing around you, is a strong finish in my humble opinion
Totmarbz I agree. But Phil’s play this week is a perfect example of what can be done. When you think about it, if he doesn’t hit the elm tree with his second shot on 18 he’d probably win the US Open and win it with hitting tee shots that the average player wouldn’t come close to making the cut with.
Fuck sakes Ogilvy got it handed to him and miracles to win...chip in at 17 and great up and down save on 18 for par while everyone else was double bogeying....Monty doubling from a perfect lie in the fairway...US Open pressure
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Johnny Miller put it perfectly when he said "you don't have to run down the last stretch on a white stallion. You can limp in and say 'thanks for the trophy'."
No, you just chip in on 17 instead. It was the most fun ending to a US Open when par was basically a birdie!
Phil was so good at this point. His irons, short game, putting, etc. Driver just completely took him out of it.
Cheeko1111 Yup. Hard to win a U.S. Open hitting 2 out of 14 fairways
forgotten is how exceptional Ogilvie's pitch is on 18, especially considering that lie and the steepness of that green, PLUS the pressure. having said that, PM made possibly the worst decision of all time with his second shot. you can't blame one of the best players in the world for hitting driver off the tee, but that attempt to carve it around a tree was ill-advised.
Thanks for uploading, great vid
"Ben Hogan has officially rolled over in his grave" Johnny Miller. Lmao.
I don't think I've ever seen so many players try desperately hard to lose in any other major, it's still an extraordinary viewing experience 13 years on!
I was there that day and I saw something I’ve never seen before. 2 minutes before teeing off it was him and Kenneth Ferris on the putting green. The putting green is very close to the first tee. But Phil wasn’t putting. He was teeing up Drivers and hitting them onto the adjacent course. Just desperately trying to find someone he could play that day. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Wish we had cell phone camera back then. There was only about 5 spectators watching this and Roger Maltbie was there. He walked with Phil/Kenneth that day. I asked him if he had ever seen anything like this before. “Hell no.”
Brian Ferris Phil was running out of gas he had been playing great golf for almost a year straight at that point, he was desperately trying to keep the momentum going.
His driver had already been failing him for months, earlier this same year (2006) at the BellSouth Classic he had dominated the field playing 2 drivers (a draw driver and a fade driver) as a test for Augusta, and had won the Masters a week later employing the same 2-driver setup.
But at Winged Foot he needed 13 other clubs to deal with the harsh setup of the course, so he could only afford to put one driver in the bag. He needed to find a way that week to somehow get it in play, but he just was never able to.
I’m not surprised he was taking desperate measures in the final minutes before his tee time, everyone including Phil knew that he was extremely fortunate to be leading and that if he continued to drive it like that, it likely wouldn’t be good enough to win. As it turned out he continued to play like that and it was luckily good enough for 17 holes… but to not hit 4 wood at 18 was criminal, he should have played it as a 3 shot hole with 5 being the worst score he could make.
I personally believe that Phil hit driver because he figured he had a better chance of hitting one driver in the fairway now than he did of getting his driver to behave for an entire day tomorrow in a playoff. But I still think laying up off the tee was the right play because even if that was Phil’s logic, he probably would at least have a better chance of making par from short of the green than he would be from the trees.
At 9:04 Johnny Miller: He's thinking about cryin' right now! One of his best lines.
Very similar to what Van de Velde did at the 1999 Open Championship. Both had a lead on the 18th, both pulled out a driver when it was not necessary and both paid the price.
DoubleOhTheG but van de velde got very unlucky. His second shot cleared the burn and should have been fine. But it hit a grandstand and came backwards. Grandstands arent part of a course.
@@brianferris9323 he was clinically insane for hitting a 2 iron from a terrible angle 40 yards right of the fairway
Nicely edited.
thanks!
You can feel the pressure in all of them
The course that even kicks the pros ass. Hope it's the same this year
At least Phil's lost his moobs now.
I thought they were cute
Mickelson (3 majors) was hot on Tiger's major winning tail (10 majors) at this point in their respective careers. Mickelson was coming off winning 2 majors in a row: the '05 PGA Championship and the '06 Masters and this would have been the 3rd leg of the potential Mickelslam. This would have been his 4th major and even though he was never great at the British, momentum is a thing and then there was the '06 PGA where he played well the first 2 days. It's very possible that if Mickelson seals the deal at this US Open, he has 5 majors at the end of '06 while Tiger could still have been stuck at 10. Instead, it ended up Phil stuck on 3 and Tiger increasing his lead to 12 winning the '06 British and PGA. This US Open result pretty much ensured Tiger of being the only dominant golfer of his era.
Man, I really miss having Johnny in the tower.
I remember watching this and sitting in disbelief when Phil pulled out his driver on the tee box. Bones should have vetoed that one.
No caddie can veto a choice the player is adamant about.
jpracingph I think Matthew Peterson is referencing the fact that Phil gives Bones one veto per year, no questions asked.
James that is exactly what I was referring to.
Matthew Peterson Phil has said many times that the big mistake wasn't actually the driver but the 2nd shot. He had 185 to the front of the green and had to hit a 3-iron cut shot around a tree and he overcut it and hit it dead smack into the tree and it moved back towards him. Amazing that he did not consider chipping out to 100yds and trying to get up and down for the win. Had he not been able to, he would have secured himself a playoff. Hindsight.
+rm1133 Foresight. Even before he walked up to the ball people were talking about laying up short of the green.
16:18 Geoff Ogilvy will have to make the longest but the most difficult putt for par of his career
What an implosion
In the game of golf you need to learn and develop the ability to release tension out of your body, if you can't you may experience on of the worst melt-downs in U.S. Open history.
Crazy, I didn't know they were using drone cameras for sports broadcasts back in 2006.
See you next year Winged Foot! #USOpen2020
Should be awesome
Worst thing to happen to Monty was his birdie on 17th . He was playing beautifully and had given himself Great birdie putts all round. Had he par in 17th he’d have definitely made his par on 18th. What a great back nine . Everyone was involved top names and one of the closest top-player Majors ever .deserving winner though he had a great game and made fantastic-pars when needed and his up and down for par on 18th was terr😊ific
A US Open win @ Winged Foot GC would of made Phil legendary in the golf world. Top 5 all time since he was in the Tiger era
M M yep it would have been his 3rd straight major victory and a chance to equal the Tiger Slam, what people were calling the Mickelslam, at Hoylake. However Mickelson not only blew this but then saw Tiger win the final 2 majors and end the year on a 6 tourney winning streak. This was the best and most realistic chance Phil or Vijay or Rory or anyone else has had to get fully on Tiger’s level.
Drive for show, Putt for dough. Phil, why did you not just play for the par.But as we say in Australia, Geoff pulled a Bradbury, last man standing.
This was the hardest us open ethier this or the 07 bc the winner was +5 winged foot had really fast greens and hard slopes and oak mint had the highest roughs like it would be impossible to get out of
I was there.
Me too
Didn’t think it was possible for so many players to throw away a shot a major……until yesterday’s PGA. Poor Mito
what makes the green so difficult compared to other pga venues? Alot of highscores based on what i saw around and on the green.
Firm, a lot of slope and at least 13 on the stimpmeter.
Poor Phil. A part of it was probably that he was so close to winning a US Open before and just used poor judgement. Now he's probably too old to get one.
Not in this video, Furyk's birdie putt at 15 was really terrible. He lost the Open because of that putt.
Was that his 3 putt from about 12 feet ?
Remember it like yesterday....I couldn’t believe what I was watching....Colin has never won a major and Phil has still never won the us open...
'Up and down need to be maded..' 19:05.. English language gone out the window
Chaos
A real shame Colin didn't win this one - was was good enough to be a major champion
Mickelson straight up blew it. I still don't know why he hit driver there?
He was not hitting it straight with his fairway woods either and the hole was a long par 4.
us opens should not end under par, like the open championships.
Miller was right about Mickelson though, you can't keep spraying the ball left and right and expect to win on an Open course. Phil didn't just blow it on 18, but for the whole back nine he kept on trying to outdo himself. Hitting driver time after time and he still couldn't hit a fairway. He didn't deserve to win it in the end, too many stupid decisions. Bones should have stepped in at some point to lead the way. This was Phil's best shot at the Open too.
+cedrictrent92 To be fair he was spraying the ball with his long irons and fairway woods as well.
+DanielSong39 I agree but I still think that with a one shot lead on the 72nd hole Bones should have been handing Phil a 5 wood. Play the percentage shot and give himself the best chance of putting the ball in the fairway. But yeah, he was wayward.
+cedrictrent92 The percentage shot was to hit driver and hit it straight enough to not be blocked out by the trees. If he hits it 10-20 yards off-line he can still gouge the ball close to the green and has a much better chance of getting it up and down.
On a long par 4, you have to hit driver and take your chances.
DanielSong39 I disagree. If that was the percentage shot, then why did it go so far off? it's because he was missing left and right with his driver all day. If he tried something different, say a 5 wood, the chances it's not horrible is waaaayy lower.
Phil was missing with all the clubs all day. Actually he was pretty lucky to even have a chance to win. Probably should have shot 77 or worse the way he was hitting the ball.
I miss Johnny Miller doing golf, and Phil really did make bad decisions
It still would have been difficult for Phil if he hit a perfect 3wood on 18. 450 yd par 4 and par is a must. Gotta hit something long and in the fairway to get an fair par chance. Cant really go 3 iron off the tee on a 450 yd par 4 to set up a good 2 putt
with phils distance he can prob hit a 3iron 250 off the tee and hit a 6 iron from 200 and 2 putt. but i see your point
If the 3 iron goes only 220 you have 230 to the green and you still have a problem. If the 3 iron goes only 220 and into the rough it's an automatic 5.
did he get 6 on the last hole?
bambino bambini yeah, he somehow made the putt
Monty's 3 putt at 18 was the worst of them all!
15:21 I cannot get over seeing the exact moment Phil's brain melted
Completely checked out; all logic, reason, and coherent thought sucked into a black hole in his skull
5:22 Fickelson!
Worse than van de velde. He at least was in a playoff.
I remember this well, Mickelson was the one who blew it, should have gone over the tree with a wedge and trust he got up and down, as soon as he hit the tree on the 2nd shot he had absolutely no choice but to go for it
Nah, Monty was in the middle of the fairway.
Actually Ogilvy also collapsed down the stretch; had a 2 stroke lead in the middle of the round and made 4 bogeys coming home. Fortunately you can't make bogeys when you're done.
He finished with 4 pars
@@stephenmacdonald76 He bogeyed 4 of 7 holes before finishing with 4 pars, not exactly a strong finish
He had the worst score of all the players who finished in the top 5 for the final 11 holes
@@DanielSong39 4 pars when it counts when you know what you have to get when the rest are collapsing around you, is a strong finish in my humble opinion
And still has yet to win a US Open
Want to know more about politics? Watch it here -
I already look forward to the players complaining about the "unfair" conditions next year . just because they can't mak birdie on every hole.
Totmarbz I agree. But Phil’s play this week is a perfect example of what can be done. When you think about it, if he doesn’t hit the elm tree with his second shot on 18 he’d probably win the US Open and win it with hitting tee shots that the average player wouldn’t come close to making the cut with.
that rough looks awful
chokelson at his best 🤪
five majors how many you got
Fuck sakes Ogilvy got it handed to him and miracles to win...chip in at 17 and great up and down save on 18 for par while everyone else was double bogeying....Monty doubling from a perfect lie in the fairway...US Open pressure
THIS is why people hate Johnny Miller.