A true test of skill, the U.S. Open found its champion

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There was no title defense. There was no unprobable comeback. There was no "this one's for Amy." But man was it good.

This one was about grit. Not glitz or glam.

It was about getting your feet wet and your hands dirty as you wiped mud off your golf ball. About hanging in there through a deluge of rain and subsequent delays. About watching a fine spritz kick up as your putts squished toward the hole; about accepting what you could control and letting go of what you couldn't.

It was as much about patience and acceptance as it was about fairways and greens. About grinding your way through the chaos and pressure for five days, not four. About believing that no matter where you've been or what you have or haven't done, you belong in that handful of players with a chance to win a U.S. Open.

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This 109th U.S. Open went to a kid whose late coach never stopped telling him he was good enough. To a talented player who had never made a cut in a U.S. Open before; to a qualifier who finally figured out it's about patience and composure rather than perfection.

Lucas Glover bowed his head and pulled his cap down low to hide the tears as he walked off the 18th green Monday afternoon. He thought about all those times Dick Harmon had said he was good enough to win a major. And now he had.

Glover two-putted for par to win the major that most figured would be No. 15 for Tiger Woods or a heart-wrenching fourth for Phil Mickelson. Woods couldn't buy a putt and was wheels-up for home when Glover's final putt fell; Mickelson was waiting for his fifth Open ceremony as a runner-up and trying to make sense of his last two holes.

This was, in so many ways, the real People's Open. One for those who slept out in their cars overnight or rode the train with their clubs in tow just to play Bethpage Black for so many years; one for the spectators who bought a $7.50 ticket on the Long Island Railroad to stand in the rain and watch; one for those, like Glover, who had to play their way here.

We knew going into the week that Mickelson was New York's favorite. No one plays the Big Apple with more aplomb or enthusiasm. They love him, he loves them. And that he was playing this one for his wife Amy, who is about to undergo breast cancer surgery and treatment? Neil Simon couldn't write a better script.

And Tiger? What can you say about last year or 2002 or his run at history? He was coming off another incredible performance at the Memorial Tournament, and he was a double-defending champ -- from that iconic playoff with Rocco Mediate at Torrey Pines a year ago and Bethpage in 2002. The stage seemed set.

Yet what emerged from the waves of rain and stop-and-start was a true Open. Three of the top four names on the final leaderboard were qualifiers -- Glover, David Duval and Ricky Barnes. And two of them -- Duval and Barnes -- were ranked 882nd and 519th in the world, respectively.

The top 15 included up-and-comers like Rory McIlroy and Ross Fisher; names you kind of know in Soren Hansen and Ryan Moore and Matt Bettencourt, who is best known for a) going to the hospital with kidney stones the night before winning the 2008 Nationwide Tour Championship and b) getting his clubs stolen out of his courtesy car as he ate breakfast at this year's HP Byron Nelson Championship. This year's PLAYERS champ Henrik Stenson was right there, too, and the only other major winner in that upper tier? Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters champion.

And three amateurs made the cut -- and made us smile with their enthusiam and promise.

As Glover said Monday afternoon, everything in its own time.

"There's early bloomers, late bloomers,'' he said, pausing, "and always bloomers, in Tiger's case.''

But as we found out, this wasn't Tiger's week. Yes, he got the crummy side of the draw, but that wasn't it. His putting just wasn't there.

"The good ones aren't going in,'' he said. "The bad ones aren't even close."

And not even that uber focus and patience of his could overcome that.

It wasn't Mickelson's week either. Two bogeys down the stretch canceled out a brilliant eagle at the 13th.

This was one of those Opens that keeps a kid's dream alive. The week was as imperfect as all those muny courses where they practiced until half past dark; the weather as crummy as those commercials where players huddle under a shack and wait for the rain to pass. The road went past the top two players in the game, and, in the end, it went to the man with patience and grit.

And those who fell short? It was still, in so many ways, a win.

Barnes, the 2002 U.S. Amateur champ, was all promise and no delivery until he got to 12 under at one point and led going into the final round. even though he let things slip away, he pulled it back together at the end to tie for second.

As for Duval? He's been telling us he's right there for so long, and now we believe it. The former No. 1 player did everything right this week but win. He came back from an opening double-bogey and came thisclose to a second major. The shots, the focus, the belief are back. We can't imagine him not contending next month at Turnberry.

The same goes for Glover.

Winning an Open reinforces what Dick Harmon told him all those years -- that he was good enough; that he did belong.

He knows he finally got out on his own and just let it happen.

Glover chuckled that winning got him in some cool tournaments for the next few years. Put him in the top 20 in the world, too. And, oh, on the 2009 Presidents Cup team and on track to play in the 2010 Ryder Cup.

What he doesn't realize -- not yet anyway -- it also reminded all those kids who dream about just playing in an Open that winning one isn't about where you're ranked or what others think. It's about patience and belief in what you can do.

Melanie Hauser is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. Her views do not necessarily reflect the views of the PGA TOUR.