You could almost forgive Jean Van De Velde for throwing away the opportunity to win the Claret Jug by slicing, blocking, and chunking his way to a triple-bogey seven on the 72nd hole of the 1999 British Open Championship. His one win on the European Tour to that point had come six years previously in an event not exactly boasting the strongest of fields, and he had never finished higher than 18th on the European money list.It was only his fifth appearance in a major championship in twelve years as a pro and, without wishing to offer any more excuses for the absurd seven he rung up, the home hole on the British Open’s rota’s most difficult course is an extremely tough par-4 that was playing longer that day thanks to almost a week’s worth of persistent rain.

For a player of Phil Mickelson’s stature to replicate such recklessness and throw away a chance at winning his fourth major, and third in succession, with course management straight out of the Van De Velde School of Golf Strategy was downright indefensible.

Mickelson, of course, has a built-in desire to take on shots that most other players would regard as foolhardy, but his three major triumphs – the 2004 and 2006 Masters and 2005 PGA Championship – were earned through meticulous preparation and a shrewd restraint which turned the rare, but all too destructive, double and triple bogies into bogies, and a number of potential bogies into pars.

That alien, but seemingly established, self-control which has served Mickelson so well the last couple of years was clearly absent last evening however, as he lined up a long iron approach to Winged Foot’s 18th hole from a questionable lie in the rough, needing only a par to win the tournament. Having carved a driver way left – a driver that, like Van De Velde’s at Carnoustie, was altogether unnecessary – Mickelson had 200+ yards uphill to the green.

With a stand of trees less than a hundred yards ahead and directly on his line, the situation surely called for a chip back on to the fairway followed by a short iron to the putting surface. If he holed the resulting putt he would be champion; if he two-putted he would be in an 18-hole playoff today with an animated, pro-Mickelson crowd urging him on. Instead he took on the near-impossible shot and…well, you know the rest.

“I just can’t believe that I did that,” he would say afterward. “I’m such an idiot.”

No one that heard him disagreed.

It was a bizarre finish to a bizarre final round at the Open,a round in which no one took charge and any one of five or six players had a realistic chance of winning. Mickelson looked odds-on with a two shot lead standing on the 15th tee, but bogeyed the 16th and doubled the last. Padraig Harrington finished with three bogies when three pars would have won it. Jim Furyk closed with a bogey when a par would have got him into a playoff. And Colin Montgomerie blew his best chance of finally capturing the major championship he has been striving for (and which he has come very close to winning) these last 15 years by making a total mess of a straightforward approach shot to the 18th hole from the middle of the fairway and winding up with an ugly six of his own.

It was a shame to see Monty falter at the last. A major would certainly have completed his hugely impressive resume,but it seems the Scot can only pull it off on American soil when he has 11 teammates and a continent back home willing him on.

The beneficiary of all this, Geoff Ogilvy, may not have won his first major the way he expected to, but he finished with four pars on a wicked stretch of holes under intense pressure. At the last, his perfect drive found a divot and his well-struck second shot pitched a yard short of the perfect landing spot and ran back down off the front of the green.Years ago, his suspect temperament may not have been suited to handle the injustice of it all, but yesterday he calmly pitched on and holed a testy, downhill, six-footer. With the sweetest, most repeating swing in the game and the calmer disposition Ogilvy has cultivated the last few seasons, the 29-year-old Aussie is surely set for great things.

Mickelson has already achieved numerous great things, but by abandoning the disciplined caution he has added to his other abundant talents in recent times, he squandered a great opportunity of completing one more step on the road to immortality. It will be very interesting to see how he reacts.