SAN FRANCISCO — Graeme McDowell would have liked nothing more than to have made one fewer putt on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open yesterday at The Olympic Club.
If he had drained a 24-foot putt for birdie, it would have forced an 18-hole playoff with Webb Simpson. But his ball started left of the cup and stayed there, giving Simpson his first major championship and denying McDowell his second in three years.
“This is sort of a new experience for me, I suppose, finishing second at a major championship,” said McDowell, who won the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. “I would rather have tried and failed than have never tried at all. I think someone fairly familiar must have said that. But, yeah, I’m disappointed right now.”
McDowell, of Northern Ireland, had to battle and grind for 18 holes just to have a chance to get into the playoff. His chances of victory seemed lost when he had back-to-back bogeys at the par-3 13th and the par-4 14th. By then, he trailed Jim Furyk by three strokes and Simpson by two with four holes to play.
But McDowell drained a 20-foot putt for birdie at the par-5 17th to pull within a stroke of Simpson, who had wrested the lead from Furyk, and thought he had a makeable putt at the 18th.
“That putt, it was weird,” McDowell said, “because I hit that putt in practice and it bumped left and it moved right of the hole and it just didn’t do that today.”
McDowell finished 2-over for the tournament after a 3-over 73 yesterday. All four rounds were a grind.
“I just really didn’t have much of an A-game this week,” he said. “I’m not sure you can have your A-game on this golf course because it beats you up. The fairways are very elusive, the greens are rock hard, and it’s a tough test of golf, the toughest. I don’t think anyone had their A-game this week. It’s impossible to do. So to compete as well as I did with my B-plus-game, I’m very proud of myself.”
The disappointment of losing didn’t ruin the excitement he felt at being in the hunt. It’s something he hopes will help him have success the rest of the season.
“My caddie made a great analogy: [The U.S. Open is] like a really fast, scary roller-coaster that you get on at the time and you’re not sure if you like it and it’s kind of scary,” McDowell said. “But once it’s done and you look back, you realize that you had a lot of fun and you would like to do it again. That kind of sums up what it’s like to compete on the big stage at a major championship.”