It was mid-May, still a month before the U.S. Open, nearly 11 months since the horrid implosion, and Phil Mickelson could make a joke about it. Finally.

To be sure, there was nothing funny about what happened last June in the long shadows at Winged Foot Golf Club, when Mickelson gassed the U.S. Open right there in front of disbelieving millions. There was nothing comical about the way he squatted off to the side, his hands cradling the top of his bowed head, unknowingly captured as a sad portrait by photographers around the world.

Nobody had to create the caption. Mickelson gave it to them, free of charge, when assessing his egregious mistake.

"I just can't believe I did that," he said. "I'm such an idiot."

He had come to the final hole of the 106th U.S. Open holding a one-shot lead on Geoff Ogilvy, a young Australian who had never won a major. Moments earlier, Colin Montgomerie was just a stroke behind, too, but he double-bogeyed the final hole from the middle of the fairway with a 7-iron, an unpardonable sin for a player of his caliber. Were it not for Mickelson's collapse, Monty's failure from 155 yards at the 72nd hole would be remembered as the pressurized moment of the 2006 U.S. Open, crystallizing yet another missed opportunity for the star-crossed Scotsman.

But with one wayward swing of a 3-iron, Mickelson let him off the hook. And he handed the U.S. Open, dazed and disbelieving, to the unsuspecting Ogilvy, who parred the last five holes in what he thought was merely a late charge for second place.

It wasn't as if Ogilvy was undeserving: He chipped in from the greenside rough at No. 17 to save par, then got up and down for par from the deep swale in front of the green at No. 18. Had Mickelson done that, or Montgomerie, or Jim Furyk, who also bogeyed the final hole, Ogilvy still would be looking for his first major title.

"The trophy is sitting on my mantelpiece, so I'm quite happy where it's sitting at the moment," said Ogilvy, 30, who won the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in February 2006, but has not had another victory since the U.S. Open. "To be completely honest, I was pretty fortunate last year that it turned out my way, the way it did. I was obviously in the right place at the right time and played the right four rounds at the right time and came away with it.

"Phil is one of the most talked-about golfers in the world when he's not playing. So when he is playing, he does something like that, everyone is going to talk about it."

And they have, every month since it happened, all because Mickelson, when it mattered most, with a chance to make it three major victories in a row, reverted to the old Phil Mickelson. .

In a bizarre and unfathomable ending that could almost rival the collapse of Jean Van de Velde in the 1999 British Open, Mickelson tossed away the Open championship with a double-bogey 6 at the 450-yard finishing hole, bouncing a tee shot off a hospitality tent and, worse, attempting to cut a 3-iron from 201 yards in the left rough around a tree.

Instead of playing, at the worst, for a playoff, Mickelson beat himself when he eschewed a safe play back onto the fairway and attempted a daring shot that was the staple of the old Mickelson, not the one who had taken a more studious and conservative approach in major championships. And certainly not the Mickelson who had spent all those days leading up to the U.S. Open playing the final holes at Winged Foot in the fading twilight, just as he imagined it would be, convincing himself that four consecutive pars heading to the clubhouse will cement a championship.

The manner in which he lost stunned those who jammed the final hole to watch what they thought was a popular coronation. It also stunned Mickelson, who had a two-shot lead with four holes to play -- the same advantage he enjoyed when he won the Masters in April.

Instead of winning his fourth major title in 10 starts, Mickelson was relegated to another second-place finish at the U.S. Open, his fourth in 16 career starts -- tying him with Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer for the most all time.

"I think he's moved on from it now," said Ernie Els, who won one of his two U.S. Open titles at Oakmont in 1994, beating Loren Roberts and Montgomerie in a Monday playoff. "When you get to the last hole and you make an error like that, it's not like you've played bad golf. You've made one bad mistake at the wrong time. Out of 72 holes, four days of golf, if you make one bad error a day, that's pretty good.

"Unfortunately, his bad one came on the 72nd hole, when all the pressure is on and everything is on the line. Those are the tough ones to get over from. For him, unfortunately, it was the U.S. Open, 72nd hole, and that takes a bit more time."

Mickelson, though, has started new. He played well early in the season, winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Open in February and losing a playoff to Charles Howell III the following week at Riviera Country Club in the Nissan Open after bogeying the final hole of regulation. Then, in a three-week span after a highly publicized switch from Rick Smith to Butch Harmon as his instructor, Mickelson followed two third-place finishes with his first victory at The Players Championship, a sign his swing -- and his psyche -- are coming along just fine.

All of which is why Mickelson even poked a little fun at himself a couple weeks ago when he was asked about all the trees that have been removed at Oakmont.

"I'm a big fan of cutting them down," Mickelson said.

A smile. Laughter.

Finally, some relief.