225-1 Glover keeps cool to land US Open; Lefty and Duval no match for huge underdog Glover.

Byline: Jeremy Chapman

MASSIVE outsider Lucas Glover destroyed the dreams of Phil Mickelson and David Duval, two of the greatest names in golf over the past 15 years and two great favourites with the New York crowds, by keeping his nerve down the stretch to win the 109th US Open Championship at Bethpage Black yesterday at the handsome odds of 225-1.

Some Betfair customers even got 409-1, with pounds 327 matched at that price, and Brad Barry, Ladbrokes' senior golf compiler, echoed the view of the industry when he said: "Good old Lucas - he was an absolute skinner for us in the ante-post book." Nobody wanted to back the big-hitting 6ft 2in South Carolinan because had so often shown himself flaky under pressure in the past and had not won for almost four years, at Disney at the end of 2005, his lone tour victory.

And his Majors record was shocking. Three missed cuts out of three in US Opens with a best Majors finish of 20th in the 2007 Masters.

He had finished runner- up to Sean O'Hair at Quail Hollow this year and third at Torrey Pines, signs that his game was coming around after a bleak few years when he wrecked his confidence by failing to make the 2006 Ryder Cup side. Like Michael Campbell four years ago, Glover had to come through a qualifying competition, in his case in Columbus, Ohio, where Duval also had to qualify, to earn his place in the Bethpage line-up. Glover had started the day as a best-priced 13-8 shot with Totesport and 2.75 on the exchanges, short because he and leader Ricky Barnes had drawn so far clear of the others in this topsy-turvy championship in which the luck of the draw played such a huge part. All the first five home, Glover, Mickelson, Duval, Barnes and England's Ross Fisher, got the late-early draw for the first two rounds which proved such a big advantage in the stop-start weather conditions. Glover's winning score of fourunder 276 was one shot better than

Tiger's at Bethpage the one and only time the course had been used before, in 2002. The 29-year-old won by two from Mickelson, Duval and 750-1 chance Barnes, who had never had a top-ten finish on the main tour before and not even won on the Nationwide Tour despite turning pro in a blaze of publicity after beating Hunter Mahan in the 2002 final of the US amateur championship. The first man home from those who got the dreaded early-late draw? That was Tiger Woods - who else? the hot favourite whose putting let him down when he needed it over the closing holes. He posted his third consecutive sub-70 round, but it was only good enough for a share of sixth place on level-par 280, alongside Soren Hansen and Mahan. Hills shortened him from 2-1 to 7-4 for The Open at Turnberry next month, while Ladbrokes came up with a 100-1 quote for new champion Glover. But although they won pounds 600,000 on the championship and took almost pounds 1m, according to spokesman Rupert Adams, all firms were bemoaning the big drop in turnover caused by the uncooperative weather.

"Threeballs and twoballs are a big part of our business and because the re-draws came in the middle of days instead of at the end of them, people lost interest," said Ladbrokes' Barry. "And the Monday finish was no help. Most punters are at work on a Monday afternoon. We really needed a Sunday evening finish - but at least it didn't go to a play-off like last year. And Mickelson got beat - he was our big loser after one pounds 5,000 bet at 20-1 - so we aren' t complaining too much." For much of the final nine holes, as the two leaders came back to the field and Mickelson caught fire with two birdies and an eagle in the space of four holes, charging from seven behind to a share of the lead as the wild-swinging Barnes wilted, a play-off appeared a possibility even though Lefty was trading at odds-on as co-leader. It was close but no cigar for Mickelson, roared on as New York's adopted son, because just when it looked as if he was going to take his first US Open after four second places, three of them in the Big Apple and one of them to

Tiger at Bethpage seven years earlier, he let it slip, triple-putting the 15th from nowhere, then failing to get it up-and-down after missing the green at the short 17th. With Mickelson gone, up popped world No. 822 Duval with three straight birdies to jump into a share of the lead on the 17th tee. But like Lefty, he dropped a shot there and, like Mickelson again, failed to birdie the last. Still, it was an astonishing effort by the 37-year-old Duval, who has suffered no end of problems since his last victory eight years ago in our Open. His share of second money was his best finish in any event since. He had not had a top-ten finish since 2002. As with Barnes, there was 1,000 available for Duval on the exchanges and 500-1 in the offices. Also right in the mix on the run to the line was Ascot-based Fisher, runner-up to Paul Casey in the PGA Championship at his home course, Wentworth, last month. Here was another stellar effort and he will be ruing a putt of no more than 14 inches that horseshoed round the cup at the 12th. Yet he shrugged off that howler to eagle the next, the par-five 13th which had been shortened to make it no more than a drive and iron for the bighitters.

That put Fisher within one of the lead but that was as close as he was going to get as he dropped two late shots. If he could putt as well as he plays the rest of his game, he will win a Major one day. His third-round 69 contained an unheard-off 37 putts, at least six more than any tour pro would regard as acceptable. The heavy conditions on a slogging course were too much for the short hitters as six of the top eight finishers give it a lash, with Glover and Fisher among the longest on their respective tours. Fisher finished top European at 20-1 and top GB & Irish at 16-1 and it was an all-round fair effort by the Europeans with Soren Hansen in a tie for sixth, Henrik Stenson ninth and debutant Rory McIlroy sharing tenth place with Sergio Garcia. Glover was, of course, top American without Woods at 70-1, while Nationwide Tour winner Michael Sim took top Australiasian honours at 25-1 and Retief Goosen, in 16th place, was top South African at 9-4.

WHERE THE MONEY WENT Market Winner Best price Winner 1 L Glover 225-1 T2 P Mickelson 20-1 T2 D Duval 500-1 T2 R Barnes 750-1 5 R Fisher 125-1 Top US w/o T Woods L Glover 70-1 Top European R Fisher 20-1 Top continental European S Hansen 16-1 Top GB & Ireland R Fisher 16-1 Top English R Fisher 9-1 Top Australasian M Sim 25-1 Top South African R Goosen 9-4 Top rest of world M Weir 14-1 S Ames 22-1 Top rest of world M Weir 16-1 w/o Australia S Ames 28-1 Will there be a play-off? No 4-11 EUROPEAN TOUR STATS US TOUR STATS Player Events played Dollars 1 G Ogilvy 12 3,319,045 2 Z Johnson 15 3,305,441 3 P Mickelson 11 3,250,731 4 T Woods 7 3,246,813 5 S Stricker 13 3,117,036 US MONEY LIST LEADERS Player Events played Euro's 1 P Casey 9 1,948,431 2 G Ogilvy 4 1,464,867 3 R McIlroy 12 1,176,548 4 R Fisher 11 1,058,106 5 A Cabrera 4 1,041,145 RACE TO DUBAI LEADERS WORLD RANKINGS 1 T Woods 2 P Mickelson 3 P Casey 4 S Garcia 5 G Ogilvy 6 H Stenson 7 K Perry 8 S Stricker 9 V Singh 10 J Furyk 11 P Harrington 12 C Villegas 13 S O'Hair 14 R Karlsson 15 A Kim 16 E Els Scoring average Player Average 1 P Casey ........................69.30 2 R McIlroy ......................69.62 3 R Pampling....................69.69 4 C Schwartzel ................69.83 5 S Garcia ........................69.86 6 T Aiken..........................69.97 T7 P Harrington................70.00 T7 F Molinari....................70.00 T9 J M Singh ....................70.11 T9 A Quiros......................70.11 Driving distance Player Average yards 1 A Quiros........................316.0 2 J Daly............................310.8 3 P Edberg ......................306.2 4 R Cabrera-Bello ............303.9 5 R McIlroy ......................303.5 6 E Canonica ....................303.4 T7 R Rock ........................302.2 T7 B Wiesberger ..............302.2 9 J Edfors ........................301.2 10 L Westwood................300.9 Driving accuracy Player % of fairways hit 1 P O'Malley ......................78.0 2 A Tadini ..........................75.2 3 J Bickerton ......................72.9 4 F Molinari ......................69.1 5 G Orr ..............................68.5 6 Peter Lawrie ....................68.4 7 M Higley ........................68.2 8 D Fichardt ......................67.9 9 A Coltart ........................67.7 10 S Davis..........................67.3 Greens in regulation Player % of GIR T1 I Poulter ........................77.8 T1 S Griffiths ......................77.8 T3 S Gallacher ....................77.6 T3 A Noren ........................77.6 T3 R McIlroy ......................77.6 6 S Garcia ..........................77.5 7 J Edfors ..........................77.0 8 P Casey ..........................76.8 9 R Pampling ....................76.4 10 E Els..............................76.2 Putting Player Putts per GIR 1 R Kakko ........................1.656 2 T Aiken ........................1.688 3 C Schwartzel ................1.713 4 A Baddeley....................1.718 5 R Sterne ........................1.721 6 P Larrazabal ..................1.728 T7 A Quiros ......................1.730 T7 C Phadungsil ..............1.730 T9 S Dodd........................1.732 T9 I Poulter ......................1.732 Sand saves Player % of saves 1 J Rose ............................80.0 2 P Harrington ..................76.9 T3 F Molinari......................75.0 T3 R Karlsson ....................75.0 5 A McLardy ......................74.4 6 J M Singh........................73.3 7 R Sabbatini ....................72.7 8 R McIlroy ........................72.4 9 T Aiken ..........................72.1 10 R Bland ........................71.4 Scoring average Player Average 1 T Clark ..........................69.21 2 S Stricker ......................69.29 3 B Gay ............................69.39 4 D Toms..........................69.42 5 T Woods........................69.58 6 S O'Hair ........................69.68 7 J Leonard ......................69.78 8 C Wi..............................69.80 9 B Jobe ..........................69.85 10 K Perry ........................69.86 Driving distance Player Ave yards 1 B Watson ......................313.2 2 R Garrigus ....................309.0 3 D Johnson ....................307.9 4 G Wooland....................307.3 5 N Watney......................302.7 6 B Jobe ..........................302.3 7 S Piercy ........................301.6 8 J.B. Holmes ..................300.9 T9 H Frazar ......................300.6 T9 C Hoffman ..................300.6 Driving accuracy Player % of f'ways hit 1 D Toms..........................74.74 2 J Durant ........................72.64 3 B Gay ............................72.35 4 T Clark ..........................72.14 5 S Verplank ....................71.68 6 S McCarron ..................71.58 7 B Bryant ........................71.21 8 M Brooks ......................70.36 9 P Goydos ......................70.17 10 J Klauk ........................69.99 Greens in regulation Player % of GIR 1 J Senden ......................71.40 2 S O'Hair ........................71.11 3 B Baird ..........................70.65 4 B Jobe ..........................70.51 5 C Villegas ......................70.08 6 J Williamson ................69.66 7 K.J. Choi........................69.01 8 S Marino ......................68.95 9 D Johnson ....................68.93 10 S Stricker ....................68.89 Putting Player Putts per hole 1 L Donald ......................1.697 2 G Ogilvy........................1.710 3 S Stricker ......................1.713 4 R Sabbatini ..................1.716 5 C Wi..............................1.717 6 J Ogilvie ........................1.719 7 T Clark ..........................1.722 8 K Na..............................1.724 9 B Gay............................1.725 10 M Weir........................1.726 All-around ranking Player Ranking 1 S O'Hair ..........................252 2 T Clark ............................293 3 C Wi ................................298 4 D Toms ............................302 5 K Perry ............................323 6 D Johnson........................328 7 C Villegas ........................333 8 N Watney ........................337 9 S Ames ............................346 T10 S Stricker......................349 T10 T Woods ......................349 The stats on this page do not include the US Open due to the late finish of the event. Apologies for any inconvenience.

CAPTION(S):

Phil Mickelson was again forced to settle for second