THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN DIEGO - With a throbbing knee and a pounding heart, Tiger Woods made one last improbable escape Monday and won the U.S. Open in a 19-hole playoff over Rocco Mediate, his 14th career major and maybe the most amazing of them all.
One shot behind after a collapse no one saw coming, Woods birdied the 18th hole to force sudden death at Torrey Pines against a journeyman with a creaky back who simply wouldn't go away.
But that one extra hole was enough to doom Mediate, who was trying to become the oldest U.S. Open champion at 45 years, 6 months.
He put his tee shot in the bunker at No. 7, knocked his approach off a cart path and against the bleachers, chipped some 18 feet past the hole and missed the par putt.
On the verge of one of golf's greatest upsets, Mediate instead became another victim.
"Great fight," Woods told him as they embraced on the seventh green.
Woods, who delivered so many spectacular moments over four days along the Pacific bluffs, only needed a two-putt par to win the U.S. Open for the third time, and the first since it last was held on a public course at Bethpage Black in 2002.
It capped a remarkable week for the world's No. 1 player, who had not played since April 15 due to injury. He had surgery on his left knee and looked as though every step was a burden. But the knee held up for 91 holes, and the payoff was worth the pain, even if doctors had warned him that he risked further injury by playing the Open.
"I'm glad I'm done," Woods said. "I really don't feel like playing anymore. It's sore."
Woods joins Jack Nicklaus as the only players to capture the career Grand Slam three times over.
Mediate's odyssey began two weeks ago when he had to survive a sudden-death playoff simply to qualify for this U.S. Open. Even more unlikely was going toe-to-toe with Woods - whom Mediate referred to as a "monster" - and nearly slaying him.
He had a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to win, but it slid by on t
