Meg Mallon Comes Up Just Short Again : Golf: She falls one-stroke shy at LPGA Classic, giving her 14 top-10 finishes--second best on the tour.

BUENA PARK — Meg Mallon woke up Sunday morning knowing she had one last shot to win on the LPGA tour this season. She was three strokes off the lead with 18 holes to go in the Los Coyotes LPGA Classic, the final tournament of the regular season.

“It would have been a really nice way to finish up the year,” Mallon said.

Last year, she broke through for four victories, establishing herself as one of the tour’s best players. This year, she was still one of the tour’s best players. She just didn’t win.

“Not winning has been the one hard thing this year,” she said. “But that’s OK.”

She’ll take it. She has 14 top-10 finishes--including a second-place Sunday, when she birdied the final hole for a 70 and finished one stroke behind Nancy Scranton.

Only Dottie Mochrie, who will be the LPGA player of the year, has more top-10 finishes than Mallon.

Mallon was the tour’s most improved player last season, and if 1992 was her year to be the most consistent, she’ll happily accept. You won’t find many players who would begrudge her the success, either. Mallon’s easy, gregarious manner, even in the thick of a tough afternoon, makes her one of the tour’s more popular players.

Sunday afternoon, she was in the hunt, as usual.

Two birdies on the front nine helped her share a three-way lead at eight-under after 11 holes.

“I felt like I was in control of my round. I really had it going,” Mallon said.

But a couple of opportunities had presented themselves, then slithered away. Mallon had an eight-foot birdie putt on 8, and missed. She had a two-footer, maybe three, on 9. She missed it, too, and settled for par again.

“I missed that one on 9 and I think I threw off every obscenity I learned as a kid,” Mallon said. “You just know when you miss putts like that, it’s opening the door for someone else.”

When Scranton birdied 12 and Mallon, playing four groups behind, found the right bunker on the 12th and then missed a 10-foot putt, Scranton pulled away.

On 15, Mallon heard a cheer go up from the 18th green. It was Scranton’s gallery, applauding her finish at nine-under after shooting a final-round 65.

“I thought it was the Scranton thing going on, but I didn’t know,” Mallon said. “I’d heard someone in the gallery say, ‘Let’s go watch Scranton.’ It was, ‘Enough of this. Mallon’s missing putts. Let’s go watch Scranton.’ ”

When Mallon walked down the hill at 16 and saw the leader board, she knew all she needed to know. Scranton was in the clubhouse at nine-under.

“I found out I had to make two birdies coming in,” Mallon said.

She had a shot at 17, when her downhill putt from 12 or 15 feet just skimmed the right edge of the cup.

After that, it would have taken an eagle on the par-5 18th to force a playoff.

“Eighteen was for second place, I knew that,” said Mallon, who was tied with Susie Redman for second before the final hole.

Mallon laid up short of the water hazard on 18 with her second shot, then used a pitching wedge to reach the green. She had a chance at the eagle, but not much of one.

“It was going at the pin, but it just bit and stuck right there,” Mallon said. “It was right on line. But not today.”

Mallon’s season was down to a putt for a birdie and second place all alone. She thought about her year, in some ways a frustrating one.

“In a sense, it’s been rewarding, too,” she said. “I’ve gotten to that level I wanted to, as far as being a consistent player out here. It’s been a good year.”

And she had reached one of the few goals she had set for herself, making the Solheim Cup team, which will pit the United States against a European team in a Ryder Cup-type competition beginning Thursday in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“We don’t (usually) get a chance to play for our country or play on a team,” Mallon said. “I grew up playing on teams my whole life, and there’s nothing like it, rooting with other people. It took two years to get on it, two good years, and I feel like I really earned my spot. I’m excited about going to play for my country.”

So as she stood over her final putt, a 10- or 12-footer that couldn’t give her a victory, Mallon thought about next week.

“I told my caddie that since it wasn’t for the win, I pictured it as being for the win in the Solheim Cup. I put that pressure on myself,” Mallon said. “I think that’s why I got so excited after I made it.”

For the 23rd time this season, Mallon didn’t win. But for the 14th, she was among the 10 best of the tournament.

“It was kind of disappointing, but also I’m glad I made the putt,” she said. “I’m glad that it didn’t bug me that I wasn’t going to win. Second was important also.”