US Open 2013: No happy ending for Mickelson, but he isn't alone

The Sporting Gods tend to be cruel. Even seemingly chosen ones such as golf legend Jack Nicklaus do not get off easy. Nicklaus won a record 18 Major titles, but he was also runner-up in a record 19 others. What the Gods giveth, they also taketh away. So you have to feel for Phil Mickelson. He has had a Hall of Fame career already – four Majors and 49 wins worldwide. But the one tournament that he wants more than any other – the US Open keeps on slipping through his fingers. He already has a record five second places in the event. Yesterday made it six – on his 43rd birthday. Double whammies don’t come much tougher than that. When Mickelson holed out for an eagle two on the 10th to tie for the lead, it looked like it might finally be his time. By his own admission, he was hitting the ball better than ever. He was putting well. Tiger Woods was a non-factor, on his way to his worst-ever finish in the US Open. And none of Mickelson’s closest challengers had a Major on their resumes. It was odds-on for a feel good ending that many thought would never come. [caption id=“attachment_877327” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Phil Mickelson let slip another chance to win the US Open. AP[/caption] And then, once again, he found a way to lose a tournament that should have been his. A poor tee-shot on the shortest hole on the course led to a bogey when he held the lead by one. And a poor wedge on the 15th led to another dropped shot, one that would cost him the lead for the good. “Heartbreaking” is how Mickelson described it after his final round 74 that had him finish tied with Jason Day, two shots behind first-time winner Justin Rose. But at least Mickelson has Three Masters titles and a PGA championship trophy to console him. There are plenty of others, from golf and beyond, whom the sporting Gods chose more often to torment than reward. Here are a few others who have had more than their fair share of heartbreak. South African Cricket Team Until South Africa win a World Cup, it is unlikely they will shed their tag as chokers. There was the Duckworth/Lewis miscalculation in the 2003 World Cup that cost them a place in the Super Sixers. Mark Boucher celebrated after hitting Muttiah Muralitharan for six, only to find out they were one run short. And no one who saw it will forget Allan Donald’s freezing in the 1999 World Cup semifinal to be run out (he also dropped his bat) that left the scores tied but Australia progressed because they finished higher in the Super Sixes. If there is an unconventional way to lose a match in a high-stakes tournament, you can count on South Africa to pull it off. Colin Montgomerie The Scot won the European money order a record seven successive times and was a titan in the Ryder Cup that pits the best of Europe against the best of America every two years. But he was never able to breakthrough in the Majors. Suffered some tough, tough losses in the US Open and lost a playoff for the PGA Championship as well. Might well be the best player to have never won a Major. Tim Henman Pete Sampras went as far as to say that Henman would win Wimbledon, raising the hopes of Brit tennis fans the world over that he would end the drought since Fred Perry won in 1936. Henman made the semi-finals four out of five years from 1998 to 2002. He came closest to making the final in 2001 when he had an unseeded Goran Ivansevic on the ropes only for rain to intervene. That gave the big serving Croat time to gather himself and he turned the match around the next day, and went on to win Wimbledon in fairytale fashion proving that the Gods are not always malicious. Merlene Ottey She has won more medals than any other woman in the Olympics (nine) and the Track and Field World Championships (fourteen). She has also run in a record seven Olympics. Such was a lengthy record of success that she was nicknamed the “Queen of the Track”. Yet Ottey never won gold in the Olympics, suffering heartbreak in the 1996 Games, when she and Gail Devers both posted 10.94 seconds in the 100m. She ended up losing by 5 thousandths of a second. It wasn’t the first time Devers had beaten her by a microscopic margin either. In the 1993 World Championships, Devers ran 10.811 seconds while Ottey was clocked at 10.812. It is still the closest finish ever at an international track and field meet. Greg Norman The Great White Shark should have won a bucket load of Major titles. Instead, he is the only player to have lost each of golf’s big four in a playoff. Despite his incredible talent, power and swashbuckling approach, Norman just couldn’t close the deal. His most shattering defeat came in the 1996 Masters, when he led the field by six going into the final round. But what should have been a coronation turned into an episode of the Twilight Zone. Norman lost the lead to a methodical Nick Faldo heading into Amen Corner, and collapsed so completely that he did not even finish second. The grace and fortitude with which Norman handled his collapse won him a legion of fans the world over, but the Masters always eluded him. The Buffalo Bills NFL franchise The Bills made the Super Bowl four years ago behind the Hall-of-Fame arm of their quarterback Jim Kelly. They are the only team to do that and the only team to win four consecutive conference championships. Yet each year they found a way to lose. A missed field goal in the last second against the New York Giants cost them the title in 1991. That would be the closest they would come. Kelly would not win the Super Bowl in his career, and the Bills, in the 53 years they have been around, haven’t won one either.