The 107th U.S. Open highlighted many great aspects of golf, but maybe none more so than the fact that no one player can truly dominate the game. The field, perhaps at times, but not the game itself. Grant Boone looks at Tiger's apparent inability to come from behind, and why in the end, Tiger might be glad he didn't force a playoff.

By Grant Boone, Special to PGA.com

First off, let's agree that wherever the 107th U.S. Open ranks among the greatest ever, it certainly yielded its share of gimmes for the headline hacks of the print media:

Angel in the Fairway: Cabrera Earns Wings with First Major Title

Pittsburgh Stealer: Unheralded Argentine Takes Open from Woods, Furyk

Don't Cry For Him, Argentina: Cabrera Gives South American Nation Its Second Major

Who's Your Daddy? Father's Day Sees Yet Another David Fell Golf's Goliath

Duck Season: Argentina's El Pato Quacks Softly, Carries Big Enough Stick to Tame Tiger

Bridesmaid Revisited: Woods Catches Another Garter Belt, Not Cabrera; Moves Closer to Nicklaus' Other Record

Boone-doggled: Nostradamus Gloats, Masses Disillusioned at Columnist's Porous Prognostications

Among the many things Tiger Woods and I have in common, there's this: we both need new balls. His, the white ones with the swoosh, saw too much daylight over the weekend at Oakmont. Mine, the one made of crystal, didn't quite see clearly enough.

Woods took 126 swipes with the putter over 72 holes, the last of which -- a tap-in for par at 18 when he needed birdie -- left him at 6 over par, one worse than Angel Cabrera, who became Argentina's second major champion after Roberto De Vicenzo, the winner of the 1967 British but better known for miscalculating his score at the Masters a year later and missing out on a playoff. Cabrera becomes the most unlikely major champion since way back in April of 2007. He joins Zach Johnson, Michael Campbell, Ben Curtis, and Rich Beem as (to date) one-hit wonders whom Woods helped make famous.

My orb, meanwhile, proved tougher to read than Oakmont's infamous greens. In my Open preview last week, even the few predictions I got right were wrong. For example, I had Woods opening 73-71 when he actually shot 71-74. Flip flop those and I was only off by one. I "said the sooth" even more accurately for the weekend, predicting scores of 72-69. Tiger went 69-72.

Pretty impressive unless you want to get picky about my picking and point out that those scores were part of a larger declaration that he'd finish in "a tie for 7th that will belie the fact that he was never really in it." Tiger was "never in it" like Donald Trump's "not full of himself."

Unfortunately for Woods, he putted like an Apprentice at Oakmont and not even his exceptional play from tee to green -- Saturday's ball striking was as good as he's ever hit it -- could Trump a way-too-flat blade, which The Donald would've no doubt relieved of its services.

Of course, Trump would've fired me, too, had I been in his employ as a fortune teller. In addition to the aforementioned whiff of Woods' showing, I suggested you "lean toward" Sergio Garcia, Stewart Cink, and Luke Donald, all of whom "leaned toward" the airport Friday night after not just missing the cut but combining to shoot 37 over par and storing their pride in the overhead compartment.

On the other hand, I did pick Jim Furyk to win, and he easily could have. At the very least, he should've had a Monday tee time with Cabrera. A 71st hole bogey on a barely 300-yard hole forced Furyk to birdie 18, which he didn't after yanking his approach left from the middle of the fairway.

The closest Cabrera came to gracing my Open preview was falling into the category of party crasher. Difference is, he kicked his feet up on the couch and stayed all night. It was my passel of predictions that really crashed. All in all, I couldn't sum it up any better than Cabrera's countryman, De Vicenzo, after pencil-whipping himself at Augusta: "What a stupid I am."

Cabrera's first major championship and first win of any kind on U.S. soil was less of a masterpiece than it was painting by numbers. Friday, he brushed aside No. 2, Phil Mickelson, who was right on the cut line 'til Cabrera's closing birdie sent everyone home north of +10. Sunday, he wiped out Nos. 1 and 3, Woods and Furyk, each of whom went back for unsatisfying seconds. It's Woods' second second in a row following his Masters' runner-up finish. And it's the second second in as many years at the U.S. Open for Furyk. It may not have been as easy as 1-2-3 for Cabrera, but he did it none the less.

And only Cabrera dipped into the red twice at Oakmont, beginning and ending his championship with 69s, the last of which coming after a Saturday 76 appeared to have cleared his palette. No, it wasn't a work of art, but then beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For every stroke of genius -- like the approach to the brutally tough 15th that he nearly jarred before tapping in for birdie -- Cabrera would begin coloring outside the lines, a loose shot here, a shaky stroke there. It was to the point that you kept wondering about the man whose nickname is The Duck, "Waddle he do next?"

What he did on 18 -- after two straight bogeys, no less -- was rip a drive straight down the middle, muscle an approach onto the green, and two putt for a par that both separated him from and united him with two of the game's best. In edging Woods and Furyk by that single stroke, Cabrera added his name to a trophy that lists their names.

Where Cabrera goes from here seems less important a question than wondering about the destinations of the runners-up. For Furyk, it was another missed opportunity to instantly and irrevocably upgrade to elite status. Rather than etch his name on the U.S. Open trophy a second time and at least begin composing a rough draft of a Hall of Fame induction speech, the best adjectives to describe him remain "steady" and "solid" but not "superstar."

For Woods, something remarkable happened: he further demonstrated why he's both by far the best player in the world and yet certainly vincible, a word which my computer puts a squiggly red line under when I type it but one which I think communicates my point. Because for so long he was invincible in majors, seemingly capable of summoning whatever necessary -- whether it was hanging in there 'til the field collapsed or squeezing blood-red birdies from major championship turnips -- to win. Now, the odds of Woods winning when in contention at a major is at best 50-50. That's still an absurd figure for anyone else who's ever played the game but a significant step down from where Woods has been before.

His line in the last 10 majors looks like this (beginning with the 2005 Masters): Win, 2nd, Win, 4th, 3rd, MC*, Win, Win, 2nd, 2nd. I put an asterisk by the missed cut at last year's U.S. Open because his dad had just died. But you could put some sort of punctuation mark by each of those finishes because if Woods is no longer indomitable on major Sundays, his record is still unblemished depending on his position on Grand Slam Saturday nights. When Tiger has at least a share of the lead through three rounds, he's a perfect 12-0. When he doesn't, he's now 0-29. The 28th and 29th losses in that latter stat are of note because he either had or shared the lead after the final round began and didn't hold on.

So we leave Oakmont with even greater respect for a classic course, esteem for the newest Open conquistador, and further proof that Tiger Woods is undoubtedly the best player on the planet but not Superman.

Or is he?

Out of the Woods: Tiger and Elin Welcome Baby Girl, Sam Alexis Woods Debuts at 5th in Women's World Rankings

Like The Man of Steel flying backwards around the globe to keep Lois Lane from eating dirt, Woods also suspended time this week. He somehow stretched Father's Day into Monday. While he couldn't deliver a third U.S. Open at Oakmont, Elin a day later delivered the couple's first child. So what if 54-hole major championship deficits are Tiger Woods' Kryptonite? Who else but golf's superhero has the power to defeat age-old idioms and write the week's final headline:

Close AND a Cigar!

Grant Boone is a husband, father, golf broadcaster, and sports journalist based in Abilene, Texas. His column appears on PGA.com each Wednesday and every day during major championships and other big events. He can be contacted at pgagrant@hotmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com or The PGA of America.