ARDMORE - The accomplishments of Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan at Merion Golf Club are memorialized with plaques. Edoardo Molinari made his mark on the historic layout's notoriously tough greens.

The 24-year-old Italian rallied from a three-hole deficit with 10 one-putts over his final 15 holes Sunday. He rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt on the 33rd hole to close out American Dillon Dougherty 4 and 3 and win the U.S. Amateur championship.

"I was quite confident because I was playing well this morning," said Molinari, who won the Turkish Amateur in 2003 and Italian Amateur in 2001. "I just couldn't hole any putts. So, I said to myself, if I can keep on playing so well, and then maybe the putts will start to drop in, and that's what happened."

Told he needed just 18 putts on his last 15 holes, Molinari was shocked.

"Really? That's good then," he said.

It was quite a performance from a player who needed to make a bunker shot for birdie on the last hole of stroke play - the ninth - just to get into a playoff for a chance to advance to the 64-player match play field. He qualified and made the most of his opportunity.

The finalists earned an invitation to next year's Masters and U.S. Open, and, as the winner, Molinari gets a return trip to the British Open, where he finished 60th this year at St. Andrews.

Molinari said he'll delay his plan to go to qualifying school for the European Tour, and turn pro after next year's British Open.

After taking his first lead of the match with a birdie at the 25th hole (No. 7), he found magic at the ninth again, curling in a 35-foot, left-to-right breaker for a 2-up lead and one of his four birdies on the front side and seven overall in the afternoon match.

He pulled off the win without teeing it up in the afternoon on Merion's storied No. 16 "Quarry Hole," or 246-yard, par-3 17th or 505-yard 18th, site of Hogan's memorable 1-iron that paved the way for his win in the 1950 U.S. Open.

But the absence of the tough finishing holes didn't take away from what an engineering student from Torino accomplished.

Molinari became the first Italian male to win a U.S. Golf Association title, and first European to win the Amateur since Harold Hilton in 1911. He also joins Charles "Chick" Evans (1916), Jones (1924, '30), Gary Cowan (1966) and Chris Patton (1989) as amateur champions at Merion, which hosted its 17th USGA championship, the most of any club.

"It means a lot to me," Molinari said of winning at the historic Hugh Wilson-designed layout. "I still have to realize it completely. I'm really, really happy to have this win and to have won it here, especially."

The 367-yard, par-4 11th, where Jones closed out his competitive career 75 years ago by winning his second Amateur title at Merion and completing the "Grand Slam" of the U.S. Open, British Open and British Amateur, was also an important hole for Molinari. He dropped a 40-foot birdie putt there to complete a six-hole turnaround and extend his lead to three holes.

When that putt dropped, Dougherty knew his chance of a comeback was fading.

"I was just amazed and a little frustrated because he really didn't give me many opportunities," said Dougherty, whose father, Dan, was his caddie in the championship. "I kept hoping for an opportunity, for him to just make par when I had a good chance at looking at birdie, and he would make it.

"So, after he made that on 11, I didn't feel like it was over, but I felt like, man, this is getting ridiculous."

The players halved three straight holes before Molinari ended the suspense with a long birdie putt at the 15th. He took a step toward the hole and, as the ball disappeared into the cup, unleashed a sweeping uppercut in celebration.

Dougherty, a senior from Northwestern who was cheered by his purple-clad teammates and coach, had a chance to extend the match, but missed a 20-foot birdie try on almost the same line.

Molinari shook Dougherty's hand, and then turned and embraced his father, Paolo, who had flown from Italy to follow his son in the event.

Dougherty, from Woodland, Calif., is the second Northwestern golfer to advance to the final, joining Evans, a five-time finalist who won at Merion in 1916 and Engineers' Country Club in Roslyn, N.Y., in 1920.

AP-ES-08-29-05 0325EDT