If you bear with me, you'll appreciate that this relates directly to Sergio Garcia - and Garcia only has himself to blame.

To find the water on 16 and miss two relatively short putts on 17 and 18 is never going to be good enough to win a major.

But Garcia was well under par for the day when he arrived on the 16th tee looking for all the world like an unshakable champion in waiting.

That he fell apart so near the finish line will be a bitter blow.

He might salvage some consolation from the winner's apparent invincibility coming down the stretch, but Harrington's own performance served to make Garcia's finish seem all the more shambolic.

The Irishman, by contrast, played the last three in one under and holed from outside 15 feet on each of the three greens. There is very little you can do about that.

As the players reached the final tee, with Harrington one shot ahead, NBC showed footage of the boyish Garcia playing 'That Shot' from behind the tree at the 1999 PGA - can those of us who saw it ever forget it?

His face was fresh and beaming, his mannerisms charged with cocky assurance. This was Sergio Garcia with the world ahead of him and he smiled at the future.

Nearly a decade later, as he stooped to line up his putt on the 72nd green at Oakland Hills with the cheers from Harrington's winning putt ringing in his ears, Garcia cut a forlorn figure. He had dressed all in black; perhaps in preparation for the mourning to come.

Much has been made of the difficulty of winning a major in the age of the Tiger. But the list of players to enter that elite club since Woods won his first in 1997 includes names that Garcia could rightly feel he could beat in his sleep on any off day.

Paul Lawrie has a major. Rich Beem has a major. Todd Bleeding Hamilton has a major. All of a sudden, Harrington has three.

Garcia is still on the better side of 30, and like Phil Mickelson a few years ago, performs at the majors with such consistency. it is almost inevitable that he will win one before long.

And, like Mickelson (and Harrington - who has now won three of his last six majors) Garcia will probably win more once he's finally bagged his first.

But until then Garcia's story is one riddled with unwanted ifs and maybes. And while each near miss may embolden him it may unnerve him in equal measure.

Garcia is being called the 'nearly man' more and more often. If he doesn't win a major soon, he is likely to start believing it.