For one glorious morning, Nick Barrett was living the working man’s dream.

The Catonsville resident who drives a UPS truck for a living and golfs for $20 pots with his buddies had just played 18 holes across the lush acreage of Woodmont Country Club in Rockville as a long shot attempting to qualify for the U.S. Open. It had been a rocky round at the start, but he had finished well: He knocked in a challenging par putt on 17, then landed his approach just five feet from the hole on 18, setting up a birdie to end the round.

Imagine this moment for Barrett. The 31-year-old’s largest audience is usually the other members of his foursome. But on this Monday morning, several dozen hollering well-wishers were gathered, and his dad Donnie Barrett — who taught him the game — was high-fiving him after the triumphant finish to the round.

With an opening 73 and 18 holes left to play, Nick had a narrow chance to qualify for Oakmont next weekend. But it was still a chance.

“It was like a million things were going through my head at that moment,” Barrett said. “That last hole kind of brings back all the momentum. I feel like I got that back. I got all those people out there watching.”

The one thing that didn’t cross his mind turned out to be the one thing that mattered. Barrett forgot to hand in his scorecard.

His dream-like crusade as the ultimate sports underdog came to a jarring and humbling halt some 20 minutes after the round when Barrett felt the card in his back pocket shortly after finishing lunch. He had been so preoccupied with squeezing in a quick lunch in the half-hour window between rounds that he had never thought to go to the scorer’s tent.

U.S. Open qualifying is unique for mixing in a few big-name pros with average Joes (former Open Championship winner Stewart Cink was one of the players at Woodmont fighting for a spot). Matthew Vogt, a dentist who used to caddy at Oakmont, was one of these feel-good, long-shot underdogs who secured his spot in the national championship.

I spoke to Barrett just over a day after his chance had ended, not by his own shortcomings as a golfer, but by disqualification for not handing his scorecard in on time.

“What I did was for lack of a better word was really silly or stupid, whatever you say, but it is what it is – there’s nothing I can do about it,” he told me. “I’m not saying I was going to shoot a 65 and get back into it. I just wanted to post a score so I could go back home and feel good about everything.”

Barrett was clearly replaying the moment in his head even as we talked, the frustration pouring out still fresh: “I mean that overarching thing is just the DQ — argh — I’ve never been DQ’d from anything in my life!”

The return to reality on Tuesday was precipitously harsh. Not only was he back on his Howard County delivery route one day after his big brain fart, but he spent much of that time wondering what might have gone differently.

“Yesterday I was playing golf at a really nice place, playing for something that’s bigger than I can ever imagine,” he said. “Today, it’s right back doing what you were doing last week.”

What if he had glanced over in the direction of the other competitors, each of whom successfully handed in their scorecards? What if he had felt the card in his pocket sooner?

His caddy and his dad both expressed guilt for not reminding him to hand in the scorecard, but Barrett refuses to let them bear that burden.

“There’s nobody to blame but myself,” he said. “I could never let my dad say he distracted me or something stupid like that. When he told me that, I said, ‘Dad please don’t. That’s ridiculous.’ He was gutted for me as well.”

I found myself nodding along as Barrett dissected his big tournament blunder because it was so easy to imagine myself in his shoes. Less than a week ago, I filled my car up with gas, paid the bill and started to drive away with the fuel nozzle still stuck in the tank.

How many times have any of us gotten to the cashier’s counter and realized we left our wallet at home? How many times have we forgotten to pick up the very thing at the grocery store we came to get?

What happened to Barrett isn’t gut-wrenching because it’s such a unique mistake — it’s because it’s so damn common.

If Barrett is relatable in his error, his origin should strike a chord, too.

This is a guy who, after competing for three years at Liberty High School in Eldersburg, dove into the sport as a passionate hobby, who has played at Turf Valley in Ellicott City with pendulum-like regularity with his friends for the last six years. The Barrett family enjoys rounds in Port St. Lucie, Florida, where his parents moved after they retired. His dad, brother, uncle and grandfather all vie for the title of the family’s best golfer (which, for now, he safely owns).

The only thing that’s particularly special about Barrett’s golf story is that he was just one tournament away from the U.S. Open, a plateau he’s very proud to have reached.

“I mean look: I’m a working man at the end of the day,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to doing this on a day-to-day basis. I’ll play smaller events. I’ll play these qualifiers, and I’ve even gotten decently far. I can’t really take what happened any other way.

Added Barrett with a pained laugh: “I’m never going to not sign a scorecard for the rest of my life, I’ll tell you that.”

Like many weekend golfers in their 30’s, time might be running short for long days on the course. Nick’s wife Julia Barrett is expecting in November. He’s happy for the baby, and he’ll embrace being a dad, he said, but it does make moments like his tournament on Monday feel a little more precious and fleeting — a pursuit he’ll have a lot less time for.

But even though Barrett seemed as though he had thwacked his palm to his forehead a million times in the previous 24 hours, he never came off as bitter. He hoped others would take him as a cautionary tale to not accidentally forget to seize their moment in the spotlight: “I got close enough to do this. Maybe somebody else can use this as fuel to their fire.”

Even as he pored over the fresh wounds of the most embarrassing moment of his golfing career, Barrett had a refreshing sense of perspective. Having a shot at the Open was its own kind of dream, one that he’s grateful to have entertained for one surreal round of golf.

Ultimately, Barrett started the round as a common man. To his own chagrin, he finished it as one, too.

“I focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time,” he said. “There’s no sense in beating myself over it. I’m only human.”