When the U.S. Open comes to Bethpage State Park, they call it "the People's Open," so it's only fitting that one of the people won it.

Lucas Glover will not be mistaken for golfing royalty. The 29-year-old had one career win - the FUNAI Classic at Walt Disney World in 2005 - and had played in eleven previous majors, with one finish in the top 25 and six missed cuts (including all three U.S. Opens). His game is pure vanilla: hit fairways (he ranks first on the Tour in overall driving, combining distance and accuracy), reach greens (80th in greens in regulation, suggesting some loose iron shots), and make putts (23rd in putts per round).

He won the Open with his second-round 64, played in the best of the weather and under ideal scoring conditions on Friday and Saturday morning. He then managed not to lose it on Sunday and Monday, which is neither damning nor faint praise: U.S. Opens are almost always lost, not won. He could easily have folded in the third round on Sunday after going bogey/double-bogey/bogey from the sixth to the eighth, falling six shots back of his playing partner, Ricky Barnes. Instead, he played the back nine in three under with no bogeys, steadily gaining as Barnes faltered.

His final round was no thing of beauty; he hit only half the fairways and fewer than half the greens in regulation. He had to declare an unplayable lie on the fifth when his ball buried under the lip of a bunker; he had three bogeys on the front side and one on the back. He made just one birdie, on the 16th hole after a beautiful eight-iron to seven feet. That moved him to four under, and coupled with David Duval's cruel 180-degree lip-out on 17, it gave him a two-shot cushion for the last two holes. He played safely to the correct half of the green on the two-tiered 17th, two-putted for par, then took the pinching bunker clusters out of play on 18 by hitting six-iron off the tee, followed by a nine-iron to the green and a par for the win.

Glover's 73 and Barnes's 76 gave the rest of the field an opportunity to come back. Barnes fought a nasty hook off the tee, scrambling to limit the damage to single bogeys, but making seven of them in the first twelve holes. After becoming just the fourth golfer to reach double-figures under par in an U.S. Open, Barnes played the next 26 holes in ten over to play himself out of contention. Even so, he had a chance on 18 to force Glover to make a breaking four-footer to win, but his birdie putt slid by the cup.

This was one of the oddest Opens ever played. Few golfers managed to start and complete any of the four rounds on the same day. Glover and Mike Weir each shot 64's, a score not seen in the Open since 2001; Ricky Barnes set a record with his 132 over the first two rounds; 21-year-old Nick Taylor of Canada posted a 65 in the second round, tying the lowest score by an amateur in Open history. The wet conditions and the lack of continuity made the event feel more like a survival test than a national championship, until Monday brought some drama and marquee names to the fore.

The biggest roars from the raucous galleries followed Phil Mickelson, trying to win his first U.S. Open after four second-place finishes. His wife's impending cancer treatment added a measure of warmth to the crowd's embrace, and Mickelson surfed on the noise and energy all week. The loudest moment of the day came when Mickelson converted a short putt for eagle on 13, putting him into a tie for the lead. But as he has on many big occasions - the 17th hole at Shinnecock in the 2004 Open comes to mind - Mickelson faltered at the worst possible time, missing short putts at the 15th and 17th to end his chances. When Mickelson stood on the 72nd tee in the Open at Winged Foot in 2006, he had a one-shot lead and had won three of the last nine majors. Since his drive off the merchandise tent and epic double-bogey, he has not won any.

More shocking, perhaps, than Glover's victory was David Duval's reemergence. He got a horrible break on his opening shot at the par-3 third, his ball burying just under the lip and leading to an ugly six. But he maintained an air of confidence all through the round, his body language reminiscent of the Duval of old. He birdied the eighth to get back to even par, and then consecutive birdies on 14-15-16 put him into a tie for the lead, but his par putt on 17 made a U-turn at the hole, leaving him two shots back when Glover birdied behind him. "I probably had more fun out there in the heat of it, especially over the theater of 15 through 17, 18, than I've had on a golf course in a long time," Duval said afterwards. "I was in the middle of the golf tournament trying to make birdies and I was just having a blast."

There was a moment of laughter at the awards ceremony on the 18th green. The USGA had only one silver medal to give to the three runners-up - Barnes, Duval, and Mickelson - and when Barnes suggested it go to the elder of the other two, Mickelson said, "I've got four, I'm plenty good."

Because of all the rain, it was impossible for the grounds staff to get the course to play firm and fast as intended. Even so, the Black Course retained its teeth; there were only fifteen rounds under par over the last two days. Mike Davis of the USGA contributed some interesting setups, using a mix of forward and back tees and hole locations to create birdie opportunities or challenging pars. The downhill eighth hole played 142 yards in the third round, 226 in the fourth. For the final round, the tee on the sixth hole was set forward of where the public plays the hole, trying to tempt the field to drive to the lower fairway or perhaps even the green.

In the end, despite the awful weather and the disjointed schedule, the second U.S. Open at Bethpage Black was won by a player with the kind of game the Open requires. Lucas Glover may have had the best of the conditions, but he also took best advantage of them.