Graeme McDowell refuses to crack under U.S. Open pressure

From Pebble Beach — 

A man in a pink shirt and gray buttoned sweater, who spells his name G-r-a-e-m-e, won the U.S. Open on Sunday.

All hail to Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland. He is 5 feet 11 and 165 pounds and mowed down all the giants. He alone was able to walk through the house of horrors that masqueraded as a golf tournament and remain relatively unscathed.

Afterward, he told the TV audience that there would be “a few pints of Guinness going down.” He meant the fans back home in Northern Ireland, but he could have just as easily meant the other players who came apart around him all day. Seldom have so many flaked away so badly. They were like a field of breakfast strudels.

This was more a five-car pileup on the 405 than a golf tournament. It was like a Christmas tree, with one ornament falling off every five minutes. You would have thought Pebble Beach was a mine field with quicksand, not a place with fairways and sand traps.

The three-shot leader beginning the day, Dustin Johnson, hit shots to places never before explored and shot 82. No less than Tiger Woods had referred to him during the tournament as “stupid long.” He meant it as a compliment, but maybe he was just being insightful.

Woods himself — expected to be stirred to greatness by his final-nine 31 in a round of 66 Saturday that got him back in play — bogeyed four of his first eight holes, shot 75 and grumbled off into the night.

Ernie Els, who has won two of these U.S. Open titles, was a prospect until he played the third member of Pebble’s Par Fours From Hell, the Nos. 8, 9 and 10 Cliffs of Doom. Els hit his tee shot down the cliff on No. 10, climbed around the hill in vain to find his ball, took a drop and then hit his next shot down another hill to the right of the green. From that point, it was just too hard for the Big Easy.

Phil Mickelson, who also had a chance to win once Johnson departed for the moon, kept the damage to two-over-par 73, but also kept tripping over himself. He drove the par-four fourth, then turned a 15-foot eagle putt into a three-putt par. On another hole, he landed his shot on some electronic wires and, instead of taking an allowed drop, hit the ball — and not well — off the cables. One of the TV guys told the audience that he probably did that “because he knew he could spin it better off the wires.”

Say what?

It was that kind of day.

A Frenchman named Gregory Havret, who ranked No. 391 in the world and got in by qualifying, held together much better than the bigger names, those about whom TV prattles on and on that their experience will be a factor. You kept waiting for Havret to hit it somewhere wet, roll up his pants leg and try to hit it out, ala Jean Van de Velde in the 1999 British Open.

But Havret never croaked. Playing in a pressure-cooker twosome with Woods, he shot a solid 72, finished alone in second, and came close to injecting some real excitement into a day of train wrecks had he birdied the 18th hole. When his putt missed, McDowell could safely make par and win, which is exactly what the calm-and-collected Irishman did.

“It was a nice, easy five in the end,” McDowell said. “Thankfully, no drama.”

McDowell also best articulated what will be the most-remembered element of this 110th U.S. Open.

“When you have Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els obviously there,” McDowell said, “you’re not expecting Gregory Havret —- no disrespect to Gregory —- to be the guy you have to fend off at the end.”

The day will be remembered for the unraveling. Most of the field was like a T-shirt you buy on the street after a Lakers game. One washing leaves only threads.

But the memories should be more.

The marvelous ambassador of the game, 60-year-old Tom Watson, made a probable and respectful farewell to Pebble. With his final-round 76, he finished only 11 shots back of McDowell’s 284. He made a wonderful bunker shot on No. 18, and, with son and caddy Michael alongside and tears welling in his eyes, took the ball he had just used and tossed it into Carmel Bay. The ocean hadn’t taken his drive, he said, so he gave it back in thanks.

And McDowell turned out to be a worthy and delightfully self-effacing champion. He was asked if more than winning a U.S. Open, winning at Pebble makes it even more special.

“To win at Pebble Beach,” he said, “to join the names of [former winners here] Jack Nicklaus, Tom Kite, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods, and [long pause and a chuckle] me. Wow.”

His implication was that he didn’t belong. To the contrary, on this historic Sunday at Pebble, as everything and everybody else was disintegrating around him, he more than earned his spot.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com