John Heller, Post-Gazette Members of the gallery at No. 18 scramble for balls thrown by Dean Wilson and Charles Howell III after they finished the final round of the U.S. Open yesterday at Oakmont.

The Man defined by his tight red, muscle-suppled, take-no-prisoners shirt let forth a mighty thwack down the right side of the fairway at 3 p.m., and we were off.

We followed The Man -- he must be The Man, since everyone shouts that he is -- by the hundreds at the outset, but quickly grew to thousands. Like an invading army, we swallowed everything in our path, and many who might once have sworn allegiance to others at Oakmont Country Club joined us. By late afternoon, we were tens of thousands.

Many had implements of choice to help: binoculars for making a little white ball hundreds of yards away become visible; chairs for standing on instead of sitting; and periscopes, which were of course invented for golf viewing, not submarines.

By the end of the first hole, many of us chained spiritually to The Man realized that if we had none of the above devices, we were in about the worst place on the planet to watch a golf tournament -- the golf course itself.

"I can't do it all day long, that's for sure," one man said while trotting behind what looked to be his son, who was scrambling for position near the first green, oblivious to the Father's Day heart attack in the making.

And so, sad to say, there were early deserters. People on the one hand professed worship of The Man but their actions spoke otherwise. They weren't up to the task of encouraging him, rallying him, giving him the strength to sink 5-foot birdie putts. Oooh, they must be feeling guilty today.

"You want to know how to see the tournament?" said one who departed early, 50-year-old Keith Kijowski of Butler. "Do what we're doing after the third hole: Catch the shuttle bus back to the parking lot, get to your car, drive home, shower and watch the last seven holes on TV."

If everyone had only done as Kijowski had suggested, it would have been a beautiful final round of championship golf to watch. Instead, we were standing on tiptoes, squeezing between bushes, climbing aboard vacant golf carts, anything we could do to see one of The Man's shots -- or just to see him stride by purposefully, head down, as we shouted at him.

When some young Australian named Aaron or Erin or something triple-bogeyed the first hole and immediately lost his edge on The Man, a quietly sinister glee spread among us. It was as though we had just watched our fat chemistry teacher split his pants. If it had been The Man who put up that opening 7, we would have outdone Jonestown's mass suicide, right on the spot.

So off we went, making a slow crawl across the pedestrian bridge over the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and by the time we reached the second tee The Man was already near the green. This is when many realized, if they hadn't already, that the only choice was to skip an occasional hole and speed ahead for good position on a future one. Others sought out a bleacher seat to squeeze themselves into.

But even with the deserters and strategists and sitters, there were still hordes of us fighting each step of the way. We'd be four or six deep around a green or tee, trying for any glimpse we could get without some 6-foot-4 knucklehead getting in our way.

"This is what drives you crazy, when you can only tell what's happening by listening to the crowd," Bud Menacher, 66, of Seneca, says on the fourth hole, after loud applause to our left for The Man's iron shot that disappeared from our view. He adds, however, that he and his wife have a television taping it as they watch in person. Brilliant!

As we march along, getting hotter and more crowded in late afternoon, the thing that keeps us from getting testy is The Man is right there in contention. He can win this thing, if he would just sink a birdie putt or two. We cheer for his putts that save par, but we would dance naked in the fairways for him if he would only make one blasted birdie.

On the par 3 13th, his excellent chance at a deuce eludes him. We groan. A man from New Jersey wearing a Ping hat slaps it on his thigh in disgust. Murmurs mount that The Man was making the same errors yesterday. Few are willing to defect, however, despite cheers increasingly popping up elsewhere for adversaries.

"I just like to see records broken," such as The Man's quest for most major championships, explains Dave Stong, 56, of Ambler, Montgomery County. "There's nothing better than seeing the No. 1 man on the planet play."

By the time the players and throng are at the 17th green, viewing conditions are impossible. Paul Schneider, 27, of West Mifflin, offers to yield the $32 USGA-approved chair he had bought and stood on throughout the round. The 18-inch vertical lift had done wonders for the spectating of he and his buddy, Mark Szewczykowski of Erie.

"If we didn't have these chairs -- pardon my French -- we were $&#&," says Szewczykowski, known as "Eye chart" to his friends.

After another par by The Man, the pair are racing off with their chairs toward the 18th green. Many of the rest of us stop near the final hole's tee, because the elevation of the course is helpful to sightlines. Through binoculars from a mere 400 yards away, we watch the final shots of the biggest golf event most of us will attend in our lives.

It is anti-climactic. The Man does the same thing he has done seemingly on every hole, and a man from an entirely different continent wins.

No one mocks or scorns The Man as we file toward exits and shuttle buses. Yes, he may have disappointed us. But lose us? Never.