Still the darling, Mediate prepared for Buick Open
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
GRAND BLANC, Mich. -- No disrespect intended, but if he'd lost to anyone besides Tiger Woods in what turned out to be that 19-hole U.S. Open playoff, Rocco Mediate would have been, in a word, "devastated."
Woods, though, is another story. Another worldly, as well.
"This guy does things that are just not normal by any stretch of the imagination," Mediate explained Wednesday morning at Warwick Hills. "He does them all the time, not just every once in a while, especially at the big events."
Of course, Mediate did something out of the norm at Torrey Pines that week, too.
The affable man from Pennsylvanie nearly won outright and again in the 18-hole playoff. But the game's No. 1 player came up with two clutch birdies at Torrey Pines' 18th -- one on Sunday to get into the playoff and another on Monday to send it into sudden death -- then earned his 14th major with a par on the first extra hole.
"I was supposed to get killed and be a joke and all that other stuff that these idiots wrote, and I don't buy it," Mediate said. "I know you can't write nice things about everybody, but I've been doing this for half of my life, and I know what I'm doing and knew how tough it was going to be.
"It's like hitting a tennis ball against a wall; it's going to come back at you, and he's going to come back at you."
Mediate did, too, though, rallying from three strokes down through 10 holes in the playoff to take control until Woods' birdie at No. 18 in the playoff and the par on the first hole in sudden-death to Mediate's bogey. Along the way, he won legions of fans -- not just those who lined the fairways chanting "Let's go, Roc-co" that Monday but the ones who were glued to their TV sets around the world.
"It's been unbelievable," said Mediate, who returns to competition this week at the Buick Open. "But I look at it and I think about why it happened. I've had some time, and, you know what the answer is? They wanted a match.
"We know how good Tiger is. We know what he's done. ... I'm one of his biggest fans. ... But they wanted to see somebody challenge him. Even though I didn't beat him, they still loved the challenge. ...
"I just think that's what everybody wanted to see, especially from a 45-year-old."
Indeed. A day after the playoff loss, Mediate found himself making the rounds of national and international media outlets like he was the U.S. Open champion, not Woods.
Trading barbs with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show was a "blast," Mediate said. And during a two-hour satellite hook-up, he appeared on CNN Newsroom, Fox News Channel's Studio B, ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, ESPNews' Hot Seat and GOLF CHANNEL. He also went global on CNN International and did more than a dozen radio shows, as well.
"Can somebody remind me what actually did happen?" Mediate asked with a grin. "It's been unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it in my entire lifetime."
Everywhere he's been in the last two weeks, Mediate says, people have told him that their mother or father or sister, someone who doesn't like golf, couldn't stop watching the playoff. He knows Tiger was the reason the TV set was turned on in the first place, "but it was because of what it turned into," that people watched until the not-so-bitter end.
Brian Bateman, who knows a thing or two about being the underdog after making birdie on the final hole to win the Buick Open last year, can understand. He was ranked 408th in the world when he came to Warwick Hills and won his first PGA TOUR event.
"I think that's why he's kind of the media darling right now and the one that people want to watch, because he was the underdog and he put up a fight and he came close and he almost pulled it off," Bateman said.
"I think the underdog in sports gets a lot of love because of that."
Mediate, though, has been a top-20 player in the world and he'd like nothing better than to return to the upper echelon of his profession.
He could take a major step toward that goal this week with a second Buick Open title to add to his five PGA TOUR titles. A possible Ryder Cup bid looms, as well, for the man who ranks 16th in the U.S. standings.
"I know that physically, I'm ready to go, and we'll see, mentally," Mediate said. "When they ask how you're playing, I always say, 'Well, I'll tell you Thursday.' We'll find out in the morning when I tee off how I'm doing.
"Today ... I felt good, no problems, hit the ball fairly well. And I know the course like the back of my hand so that's not a problem. But it is a challenge because I haven't had much time to work."
But Mediate has certainly found some well-deserved time to enjoy himself.
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