NPLI

There, on a Sunday afternoon filled with the usual excitement and drama of the final round of what is now known as the Northern Trust Open but is etched barbour jacketsin the minds of local sports fans as the L.A. Open, Phil Mickelson andKeegan Bradley wrote a new chapter to the lore. It is right up there with most sports "wows." If your spine didn't tingle, see a doctor.More incredibly, neither Mickelson nor Bradley won the tournament.The savvy veteran Mickelson, 41, and winner of 40 http://www.shopbarbourjackets.com events and four majors, stood in the late afternoon shadows 169 yards away from a hillside packed with adoring fans and a pin surrounded by a green as slick as a basketball court. He was one shot behind Bill Haas, who was on the driving range, practicing shots he hoped he wouldn't have to take. Bradley, at 25 only a second-year player, but already a major champion and likely future superstar, had a similar view, only 14 yards closer to the pin.Mickelson, already a Hall of Famer and a winner here twice before, surely felt the history barbour quilted jacket and the scene. Bradley, who calls Riviera one of his favorite courses and who "sulked for a week" after missing the cut by a shot in his first try last year, probably did too. Each had to make birdie to get into a playoff with Haas. It was that simple, and that unlikely.Birdies on No. 18 at Riviera — a par four that plays 475 yards, feels like 600 and looks up a hill into a narrow chute of rough on the left and big trees on the right — are near impossible on a Tuesday afternoon from the www.officialbarbourshop.commembers' tee. On the final day of a tour event, with the prestige of winning at Riviera and collecting $1.188 million on the line, it's a roll of the dice, at best.Surely, Dave Stockton was watching and remembering. It was 1974, on the tee of the final hole of what was then the barbour coats L.A. Open. It is the tee, looking in the distance at the foreboding hill, that once prompted The Times' legendary columnist, the late Jim Murray, to address the bucket list of an aging man. "I have two goals left," Murray said, while standing there one midweek afternoon, hands clutching a useless driver. "One is to win http://www.barbourjacketsshop.com, the other is to, just once, hit my drive over this damn hill."