[3] Tiger Woods won his third U.S. Open and 14th major title, defeating Rocco Mediate on the first hole of sudden-death, following an 18-hole playoff.

It was an unlikely victory for Woods, who entered the tournament considerably short of match practice and was plagued throughout the week by an ailing left knee.

Each player is classified according to the first category by which he qualified, but other categories are shown in parentheses:[7] Ángel Cabrera (8,11,17), Michael Campbell, Jim Furyk (8,9,17), Retief Goosen (11,17), Lee Janzen (8), Geoff Ogilvy (9,12,17), Tiger Woods (3,4,5,8,9,10,12,13,17) Michael Thompson Trevor Immelman (17), Zach Johnson (9,17), Phil Mickelson (5,9,12,13,17) Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton, Pádraig Harrington (9,11,17) Vijay Singh (9,12,17) Sergio García (9,11,12,17) Brad Bryant Stephen Ames (17), Aaron Baddeley (9,17), Paul Casey (11,17), Nick Dougherty (11), Niclas Fasth (11,17), Jerry Kelly, Hunter Mahan (9,17), Justin Rose (9,11,17), Steve Stricker (9,17), David Toms, Scott Verplank (9,17), Bubba Watson Robert Allenby (17), Woody Austin (17), Mark Calcavecchia, K. J. Choi (13,17), Stewart Cink (12,17), Tim Clark (17), Luke Donald (17), Ernie Els (11,17), Steve Flesch (13), Charles Howell III, John Rollins, Rory Sabbatini (17), Adam Scott (17), Heath Slocum, Brandt Snedeker (17), Boo Weekley (12,17) Jonathan Byrd, Camilo Villegas Søren Hansen (17), Colin Montgomerie, Andrés Romero (17), Henrik Stenson (17), Richard Sterne (17), Lee Westwood (17) Ryuji Imada, Anthony Kim (17), Jeff Quinney (17) Daniel Chopra Miguel Ángel Jiménez (17), Oliver Wilson (17) Shingo Katayama (17), Toru Taniguchi (17) Stuart Appleby, J.

B. Holmes, Robert Karlsson, Martin Kaymer, Justin Leonard, Rod Pampling, Ian Poulter, Mike Weir None (a) denotes amateur (L) denotes player advanced through local qualifying South Course Source:[1] The U.S. Open is played over four days with an 18-hole round being played each day, for a total of 72 holes plus practice rounds.

The top three ranked players in the world were paired together for the first two rounds, but none of them broke par for the day: Woods 72 (+1), Phil Mickelson 71 (E), Adam Scott 73 (+2).

[1] Amateurs: Fathauer (+4), Thompson (+5), Fowler (+7), Stanley (+8), Taylor (+10), Tway (+11), Cox (+15), Wilson (+17), Henderson (+21), Wolstenholme (+23), Quagliano (+25).

Woods, despite struggling with his knee injury, dazzled on the back nine with some improbable shots, resulting in two eagles and a chip-in birdie from the rough on the 17th to take the 54-hole lead at 210 (−3), a stroke ahead of Westwood.

[1] Sunday, June 15, 2008 Woods had previously won each of the thirteen major championships in which he entered the final round with at least a share of the lead, and his fourteenth was no different.

However, he barely missed a birdie putt on 17 and hit a wedge too strong on 18; his pars on the two final holes kept both Woods and his playing partner Westwood in contention.

Like the day before, Woods birdied to tie Mediate and forced the playoff into sudden-death, the third in U.S. Open history (1990, 1994; previously, extra full rounds were played, with the last in 1946).

[5][14] Source:[2] The playoff started at noon Eastern on ESPN, with NBC taking over at 2 p.m. Eastern and showing the final ten holes; ESPN's two hours earned the highest ever ratings for golf coverage on cable at the time, while NBC had the highest-rated Monday golf broadcast since 1978.

[15] With the win, Woods kept his unbeaten streak alive when he has at least a share of the lead heading into the final round of a major championship (14−0).

[17] He had surgery to repair his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and needed time to rehab that and the stress fracture, and announced on his website that he would miss the remainder of the 2008 season.