Rocco Mediate's sudden tailspin ruined one of the best stories at the 2006 Masters.
April 10, 2006
By CAMERON MORFIT SENIOR WRITER, GOLF MAGAZINE
AUGUSTA, Georgia—At night, at his rented house five minutes from Augusta National, Rocco Mediate played online poker last week. It relaxed him, and took his mind off of the daily struggle with his fickle body. He compared strategy with his friend, mentor and houseguest, 2004 World Series of Poker champion Greg (the Fossilman) Raymer, on Wednesday and Thursday nights. They have bartered an arrangement by which Raymer is getting free golf lessons in exchange for coaching Mediate at poker. The golfer won $40,000 and finished in the top 20% of the 5,619-player field in 2005 World Series, and plans to play cards professionally upon retirement, which looked not so far off on the horizon until the 70th Masters last week. He was ranked 189th in the world. He'd missed four cuts in six starts in 2006, with a season best finish of a tie for 48th place at Doral. At 43, he was four years removed from his last of five Tour victories. And yet there he was on Sunday, knocking his approach shot to three feet for a birdie on the par-4 7th hole, and rolling in another birdie on the par-5 8th to climb into a tie for the lead. "I'm so happy for him" said Joe Schell, one of Mediate's classmates from Hempfield High School in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The rest of Mediate's entourage, about a half-dozen friends mostly from back home in Naples, Florida, were positively delirious, but they were hardly the only believers. "I really thought I was going to win," Mediate said.
What happened next is why the comparison between golf and NASCAR is not altogether inappropriate. Both are full of grotesque wrecks that you simply can't take your eyes off of. It started off innocently enough. Mediate striped his drive down the par-4 9th hole and took dead aim at the flagstick, but his approach was too accurate, hit the pin and ricocheted down the hill. As Mediate bent over at the waist, hands on his knees, onlookers thought he was reacting to his bad luck. He'd been playing with a sore hip, which he'd injured when he'd tried to reach the 15th green in two during the third round and lost his footing. But now his back was up to its old tricks. He thought about quitting, but couldn't do it. When was he ever going to be in this position again? He got up and down for par on the 9th hole and did the same on the 10th, and his pals erupted. Linda Mediate and couple's three sons were not at Augusta National, but Rocco still had numbers. There was Schell, who is a dentist in Milwaukee and drove the golfer up Magnolia Lane every morning; Schell's wife, Lenore; Janice Antus, wife of Mediate's caddie, Brandon; friend Steve Puertas; and Mark Murphy, a young, European pro whom Mediate has sort of adopted and who lives with the Mediate family in Naples. It was Schell's job to pick up the Chinese and Mexican takeout Rocco ordered all week.
They suspected nothing was amiss as he drove into the 11th fairway. He was 4-under-par. The dream was alive. Mediate bogeyed 11, the result of another bad break, his par putt doing a horseshoe around the cup, but he was still at 3-under-par and just three strokes behind his friend Phil Mickelson, with whom he'd played a practice round earlier in the week. "He needs to birdie 12," Schell said. "He birdied it this morning in his third round." Instead, Mediate hit his ball at the pin and watched it land short of the front bunker and roll back into the water. The crowd moaned. He took a drop and hit another one in the water. "He just chunked it in the water again," Joe said to Rocco's rooters. "Halfway across!" Silence. By now the members at Augusta Country Club, behind the back fence on 12, had stopped chanting, "Rocco! Rocco! Rocco!" Mediate took another drop and hit another water ball. "Here's something for your magazine," Murphy said. "F&*!!! Print it in capital letters." Finally Mediate cleared the hazard, slapping his ball into the back-right bunker. He splashed out away from the pin, eliminating the possibility of again entering Rae's Creek, and two-putted for a 10. He had gone from the best story in the 2006 Masters to a mere footnote, from 3-under-par to 4-over, from Michael Campbell to Jason Gore, in just over 20 minutes. The volunteers at the giant scoreboard beside the 11th green took his name down.
Afterward, Mediate talked not of the 10, but of his second shot on nine. "That shot was a double-whammy," he said. "I was tied for the lead at that point and feeling tremendous. It was the sickest sound, and I knew [the ball] was coming back." What's more, he said, "My back went psycho. Tee shots weren't as bad because I could kind of dink it, but you can't dink it in around here." He went 2-over the rest of the way, with bogeys on 14 and 18, for a final-round 80 that left him tied with Tim Herron and Rory Sabbatini for 36th place. It was if none of it had ever happened, that fact that he'd almost led after his first-round 68, and fought so hard until the late afternoon Sunday. His protégé, the burgeoning Irish pro Murphy, had become a media star with a riotously funny interview on the Golf Channel. Sample (paraphrased) line: "I stay at his house, eat his food, play golf for free. I don't really like him." But what could Rocco come away with? A dose of confidence, perhaps, and a few aches and pains, but those were nothing new. "It was amazing," Mediate said. "It's the best 71 holes I've ever played." Somewhere a poker hand awaited him.
Copyright (c) 2007 CNN / Sports Illustrated. A Time Warner Company. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. Read our privacy policy andTerms of Service.
