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By Joel Schuchmann
PGA TOUR staff

HOUSTON -- PGA TOUR veteran Rocco Mediate has seen some valleys in the last year, but thanks to a chance meeting with a back specialist in early February, the five-time TOUR winner has moved closer to the peaks with his eyes on the winner's circle.

Mediate, 44, entered this week's Shell Houston Open on a roll, having finished runner-up to Vijay Singh in his last start at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. After scuffling on Saturday with a 6-over-par 76, he jumped back into contention with a final-round 67 on Sunday. Most telling about his week at Bay Hill was the fact that his once-faulty back withstood the 72-hole test with flying colors.

Rocco Mediate's back and game are as healthy as ever. (Grayson/WireImage)

Mediate is competing at the Shell Houston Open for the first time since 1995, without much of a track record. He has one top-25 in seven starts, a tie for 22nd way back in 1987, his second season on TOUR when the event was played at TPC Woodlands.

However, he's finding the Tournament course at Redstone Golf Club much more to his liking. Mediate shot a 3-under-par 69 Thursday in the $5.5 million event.

Mediate's low point came at the 2006 Masters, where he held the lead entering the final nine on Sunday before his back locked up. He eventually tied for 36th after a final-round 80 that included a 10 on the par-3 12th hole.

"At Augusta National last year, I might have won the Masters," Mediate said at a Shell Houston Open pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday. "I was leading after 63 holes. I was loving it, but I couldn't walk, hardly get up to the 10th tee box."

Mediate was forced to take a month off and was never the same the rest of the year, with just one top-25 over his final 11 starts.

"When this thing locked, it put me down for a minimum of two weeks," he said. "There were days I couldn't put my foot on the floor out of bed for 45 minutes. It would take me an hour to get down stairs. Just horrible."

In the off-season, Mediate jumped at the opportunity to work as a walking commentator for the GOLF CHANNEL -- on a three-week trial basis beginning at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii.

"GOLF CHANNEL was fun," he said. "It was a blast. I really enjoyed calling the guys' shots because I knew what they were going to do before they did it because I know them so well."

Convinced he still had some gas in the tank, Mediate went back to playing, bad back and all. After two missed cuts to open his season, he met Cindi Hilfman, a performance specialist out of Los Angeles, through some mutual friends and the results were almost immediate. Hifman manipulated muscles (quadratus lumborum) that were causing pain and misalignment in his back and hips.

"I met her on Monday (after the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am) and by Wednesday, I could do cartwheels," Mediate said. "(At the Nissan Open) It was ridiculous what I did with my golf ball since then because I haven't been able to let go for five years. The certain things she fixed were fixed, then I could move."

His improved scores were just as immediate, as he tied for ninth at the Nissan Open.

Two weeks later, playing on a sponsor exemption through his Pennsylvania roots with the tournament host Arnold Palmer, he found himself leading the event at Bay Hill through 36 holes. On the week, he led the field in greens in regulation (73.6 percent) en route to his second-place finish.

He collected $594,000 for his efforts at Bay Hill and moved into the Major Medical Extension category, giving him fully-exempt status for the remainder of the 2007 season.

His outlook on the remainder of the season?

"My back is 100 percent," Mediate said. "I haven't been able to say that in about five years. One thing is now I'm not afraid. I can tell you that right now. I may have a bad round because I shot 76 at Bay Hill on Saturday, but it wasn't because I was afraid. I definitely was afraid early in my career. Now I don't care."