Sheehan Closes Door on Open Failure : Golf: Her 72 beats Inkster by two shots in playoff, erasing memory of collapse in 1990.

Just as she did two years ago, Patty Sheehan broke into tears at the completion of the U.S. Women’s Open.

“Two years ago, they were tears of sadness,” the emotionally drained Sheehan said. “Today they are tears of joy.”

Sheehan, who blew a nine-shot lead over the last two rounds of the 1990 Open, shoved aside that haunting memory Monday with a scrambling playoff victory over her closest friend, Juli Inkster, on Oakmont’s treacherous greens.

“A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought about that,” Sheehan said of her collapse.

“Now, I can put it out of my mind and think of this. I can think of winning the Open, and I can rejoice.”

She won it by a two-stroke margin by shooting a one-over-par 72. But it really wasn’t that close.

Sheehan, who forced the playoff when she caught Inkster with birdies on the last two holes of regulation play Sunday, made it three in a row with a 10-footer on the first playoff hole.

And she led the rest of the way, by two at the turn and by five with two holes to play.

“After 16, I started to relax, play safe,” she said. “It got kind of sloppy. I bogeyed the last two, but I didn’t care at that point.”

At that point it didn’t matter. She had it won, the 29th victory of her LPGA career and only one short of the total she needs for membership in the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Sheehan scrambled. Inkster was down the fairway and on the greens, where the outcome was determined.

“It all came down to putting,” Inkster said. “I putted well (all week), but today my putter let me down.”

Sheehan very nearly didn’t have her putter at all.

She left her clubs at the private home where she was staying for the week and did not realize they were missing until she arrived at the golf course.

The house, Sheehan said, “is about 25 minutes away. It took me maybe 20 minutes to drive back and get the clubs, 17 minutes to get back to the course.

“Thank goodness there were no cops around.”

The statistics tell the story: Inkster hit 15 greens in regulation, Sheehan nine, and only one on the back. Inkster had 36 putts, including a pair of three-putts, and Sheehan had 29--including six one-putts on the back side.

The tone was set early. Sheehan made the 10-footer for birdie on the first hole and Inkster missed from five feet on the second, then from 10 feet on the fifth.

Two strokes ahead at the turn, Sheehan holed an 18-footer for par on 10 as Inkster missed from 12.

After a bogey on the 11th, Sheehan began a decisive string of five one-putt greens--one for birdie and four to save par.

Over the same stretch of holes, 12 through 16, Inkster had 11 putts.

Both saved par on the 12th, Sheehan from eight feet and Inkster from three.

Inkster missed from six feet after Sheehan birdied from 10 at the 13th.

At 14, Sheehan saved par from a bunker and Inkster missed a two-footer to fall four back.

It went to five when Sheehan saved par on the 15th and 16th with putts of about six feet, and Inkster three-putted 16th, again missing from two feet.

Sheehan bogeyed in after that, and Inkster birdied the 17th.

“It is, by far, the most disappointed I’ve ever been,” Inkster said. “I’m disappointed because I think I played well enough to win, and my putter let me down.”