All of Rocco’s old golf buddies from boyhood and from Florida Southern had gathered in different places to watch the last day. Logic told them that if their old pal finished in the top five, it would be a great week. But something else told them that winning wasn’t out of the question. “That’s always been the thing with Rocc,” said Dave Lucas, his friend dating back to when the two of them would be dropped at the golf course and not play golf. “When you think there’s no way he can do something, he somehow finds a way to do it.”
Jim Ferree, watching with friends in Hilton Head, had that same feeling. “When Rocco was on the leader board on Thursday, people were saying to me, ‘So your old student can still play a little, that’s nice,’ ” he said. “I told them not to be surprised if he was still in contention on Sunday. I was looking at his golf swing. It certainly wasn’t the same swing I’d taught him, but it had a lot of the basics. He’s had to adjust it through the years because of his back, but it’s still a very good golf swing.”
In Naples, Rocco’s sons had invited friends over to watch their dad play that afternoon, his tee time not coming until 4:20 on the East Coast. Linda Mediate watched as her sons and their friends cheered her husband on and couldn’t help but feel bittersweet about it all.
“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “A big part of me was thrilled because I knew he had dreamed of being in this situation — especially at the Open — his whole life. We had talked about it for years. I was nervous the whole day because I wanted him to do well. But I couldn’t help but feel sad that none of us was there with him — on Father’s Day. That part was tough.”
When Rocco had walked onto the 10th tee early on Thursday morning, there weren’t more than a couple of hundred people watching. Now, as he and Ogilvy walked onto the first tee, every inch of available space was packed with people. Many had been there for a while, jockeying for position to see Woods and Westwood, and would stay right there once Rocco and Ogilvy left the tee. But many others wanted to see the kid from Greensburg.
“I think it was one of those deals where a lot of people were going to stay with me as long as I still had a chance,” Rocco said. “That turned out to be quite a while.”
Nerves jangling, Rocco again managed to find the fairway on number one. It was the fourth straight day — the third with his stomach in a knot at the start of the round — that he had found the fairway on his first hole.
In fact, his start was almost identical to Saturday’s. He hit the green with a six-iron at the first and made a routine par — except that nothing was routine now. Then he hit a perfect three-wood once again at the second and an almost perfect seven-iron to 10 feet. When the putt rolled in, it occurred to him that this was not going to be a day of simply trying to hang on to make a good check. He had a chance to win.
“It wasn’t as if I didn’t think it before the round began,” he said. “But the good start and then seeing Tiger’s double bogey on number one go up… I remember thinking, ‘Wow, the game is really on.’ ”
Rocco was on the third tee when he saw that Woods had somehow double-bogeyed the first hole for the third time in four days. What he didn’t know was that Woods had actually gotten up and down to make six. “Made a nice little two-footer,” Woods joked later.
His drive had again gone straight right — “a snipe,” as Woods called it — and he had to play his second shot from the trees well right of the fairway. “The second shot wasn’t actually that hard,” he said. “I had a funky lie. I didn’t know how it was going to come out, and it squirted left. I didn’t envision that happening. I didn’t think that the lie would turn my club that much. I had the face open to make sure if it turned it would turn into the left bunker, no big deal, easy pitch. But it turned straight into the tree.”
Still in the trees lying two, Woods popped his third shot into another tree. “I came down too steep and hit it right into the tree,” he said.
From there, he chopped the ball out of the rough to a spot just in front of the green. “I hit a good little pitch from there to get to two feet,” he said.
Having made a weekend hacker’s double bogey at the first hole, Woods made an ordinary bogey at the second, missing the fairway by a mile again, laying up to where he could pitch onto the green and two-putt for a five. Thirty minutes after he teed off trailing Woods by two shots, Rocco walked off the third green — having just made par — leading him by two. At that moment, he was two under par for the championship, Westwood was at one under after a bogey on the first hole, and Woods was back to even, his late-Saturday heroics wiped out in two holes.
Later, Woods would be asked if his horrific starts all four days — he played his first hole each day in a total of seven over par — had something to do with his knee perhaps not being loosened up when he started playing.
“No,” he said firmly. “The three double bogeys at number one were the result of terrible, terrible golf shots. The bogey at number ten on Friday was just a three-putt.”
One of Woods’s more admirable qualities is that he never makes excuses. He may occasionally behave badly on the golf course — throwing clubs, looking as if the world is out to get him when he misses a putt, spraying profanities — but when all is said and done, he always places blame for his failures squarely on himself. In fact, he is so self-critical that there are times when he doesn’t give enough credit to that rare player who happens to beat him.
Even though Woods’s start wasn’t all that different from the other three days, there were murmurs around the golf course that he might not finish the round. David Fay wondered in the NBC TV booth, especially after Woods hobbled off the second tee using his driver as a cane to support himself. Many in the media who were walking with Woods and Westwood thought he might quit at any moment.
According to Woods, that was never going to happen. “I was going to finish,” he said. Then he added with a smile, “I might have been on the clock [being timed for slow play], but I was going to finish.”
He settled down after the double bogey–bogey start and began grinding out pars, which, in the end, is always the best way to play on an Open Sunday. He parred the next six holes, grimacing at missed birdie chances but knowing that every par he made kept him very much in contention.
Rocco backed up his birdie at the second hole with pars at number three and number four, but caught a bad break at the fifth when his tee shot took a big hop off a hard fairway and instead of landing in the first cut of rough, ended up in the second cut or, as he put it, “the gunk.”
“I actually thought I’d hit a beautiful shot there,” he said. “I caught the ball smack in the middle of the club face, but it probably started out two yards farther left than I wanted it to. Once I got down there and saw the lie, it was pretty much take your medicine, make bogey, and get out of there. I hadn’t planned on playing a bogey-free round, but that one hurt because I felt as if I got burned for a mistake when I really didn’t make a mistake.”
On the sixth hole he made another bogey. “Probably the toughest hole on the golf course,” he said. “I could play that hole pretty well and still make a bogey. On Saturday, I had to hit a perfect rescue club from the fairway to get it on the green. The hole is 515 yards. That’s a long par-four for me. I didn’t hit a bad tee shot; I just didn’t hit it well enough that I could get my second shot on the green.”
The back-to-back bogeys dropped him out of the lead. Westwood was now in front at one under, with Rocco and Woods one shot back. No one was making any kind of move from behind. In fact, all the players who had been chasing at the start of the day from within six shots of the lead were going backward. None would break par, none would make any kind of serious move on the leaders.
It was now clearly a three-man tournament: Rocco, playing with Ogilvy — who would shoot 74 and finish in a five-way tie for ninth — and Woods and Westwood behind him.
After his opening bogey, Westwood had gotten into a par groove, making seven in a row. From the third hole on, Wo
ods did the same, making six straight pars. They were proving definitively Rocco’s theory that there’s no such thing as a bad par on the last day of the Open. By the time the three men had finished the eighth hole, the standings were the same: Westwood leading by one over Woods and Rocco. Rocco had parred the seventh and eighth holes.
Once again, Rocco had to lay up at the ninth, leading to a par. Westwood and Woods were both able to go for the green and both made birdie — the first one of the day for either man.
The par-fives would prove critical to the final outcome. Over the four days of the championship, Rocco, laying up almost every time, played the 12 par-fives in two under par. He made four pars at the ninth; a birdie, two pars, and a bogey at the 13th; and two birdies and two pars at the 18th. Woods played the 12 par-fives in nine under par. He made three birdies and a par at the ninth; two eagles, a par, and a bogey at the 13th; and an eagle, a birdie, and two pars at the 18th. The seven-stroke margin on those three holes was critical.
With their birdies at nine, Westwood and Woods made the turn in first and second place, Westwood one shot clear of Woods and two ahead of Rocco.
Rocco understood the situation but didn’t think there was any reason to panic. “Tiger had clearly gotten his act together,” he said. “But I still felt good about the way I was playing. My shots were still coming off the club the way I wanted them to. There are birdie holes on the back nine. I knew they had moved the tee way up at fourteen to make it driveable and that was going to give me another chance. A two-shot margin at the Open can go away in the blink of an eye.”
Most of the people on the grounds were now following the last two groups. The crowds around each tee and each green were massive. In the media tent, fighting terrible deadlines because of the nine-and ten-hour time difference, writers from Europe were sending hole-by-hole updates to their papers. In Great Britain, where it was midnight when the players made the turn, people sat up watching to see if Westwood could become the first player from Great Britain — from all of Europe, in fact — to win the U.S. Open since Tony Jacklin in 1970.
Westwood wasn’t getting carried away with the fact that he had taken the lead. As he pointed out later, a one-shot margin with nine holes left — especially when the person one shot back is named Woods — is not exactly a good reason to start planning a victory celebration.
Woods may have had the best reason to feel confident. He had recovered from his brutal start, he had finally made a birdie, and in spite of the double bogey–bogey beginning, he was only one shot behind with a back nine on which he had produced two eagles and a birdie the day before still to play.
The 10th hole produced yet another momentum swing. Westwood’s tee shot found a fairway bunker and he skulled his second shot over the green, leading to a bogey. Woods made a routine par, but Rocco, after a perfect drive, hit his second shot to 10 feet and made the putt for a birdie. Suddenly, with eight holes to play, the three men were tied for first at one under par. Everyone else had fallen by the wayside.
The next two hours were a roller coaster. Woods took the lead again when he hit his tee shot to three feet and made a birdie at the 11th, but he and Westwood stunned everyone — including themselves — by making bogey sixes at the 13th. Both went for the green in two, both hit the ball left into the ravine that fronts the green, and both had to take a penalty drop as a result. Westwood had also bogeyed the 12th. That meant he had bogeyed three holes out of four, and four during the round, after making five bogeys the first three days. Pressure? What pressure?
Rocco parred the 13th — a disappointment until he saw what had happened to Woods and Westwood. After Woods and Westwood made their bogeys at 13, Rocco and Woods were again tied for the lead. Westwood was two shots back at one over par and seemingly ready to fade out of the picture.
The USGA had decided to play the 14th hole from the way-up tee on Sunday, shortening it from 435 yards to 267 yards. “We thought it would be interesting to force the players to make a decision on whether or not to try for the green under the gun on a Sunday at the Open,” Mike Davis said. “I thought it worked out really well.”
It certainly worked out well for Rocco, who didn’t hesitate before pulling out his three-wood and swinging for the green. He left the shot out just a little bit to the left and found the left bunker. But he hit a gorgeous bunker shot from there to about 18 inches and tapped the putt in for birdie. That put him at two under par and back in the lead.
Then came a critical moment that involved none of the three players in contention. One group ahead of Rocco and Ogilvy, Hunter Mahan had found trouble on the 15th hole. He had to search for his ball for a good long while, and when he found it he needed a ruling on where he was allowed to drop.
Under any circumstances, Rocco likes to play fast. He is not someone who spends a lot of time deciding what club to hit or looking over a putt from fifteen different angles. He makes a decision on what shot he wants to hit or how he thinks a putt will break, gets over the ball, and plays.
He walked onto the 15th tee pumped up after making birdie at 14. He did not know at that moment what was going on back at the 13th hole with Woods and Westwood, but he knew he was two under par and, at worst, he was probably tied for the lead with Woods.
“I was ready to go,” he said. “Take the driver out and smack it.”
Only he couldn’t, because officials on the tee told him that there was a delay in the group ahead of him. Rocco and Ogilvy sat down, figuring the delay wouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes. Five minutes passed, then ten. Rocco couldn’t sit still. He got up and began pacing around the tee. Every few minutes he asked Jeff Hall and Jim Bunch, the two rules officials assigned to the group, what was going on.
They could only shrug helplessly. “They’re trying to get a ruling” was the best answer they could come up with.
“It takes this long to get a ruling?” Rocco said. “This is unbelievable.”
It was actually more than just a simple ruling that was causing the delay. Mahan had hit his ball into an immovable obstruction and was entitled to relief. But when he picked up his ball and went searching for the nearest point of relief, it turned out to be a water hazard. That was clearly no good. He and the walking officials with his group searched for a spot where he could drop that was no closer to the hole, not in a hazard, and still a legal spot.
Finally, another opinion was sought.
During major championships, there are two kinds of rules officials present. One group consists of those who walk with the players — each group is assigned an official who can make a ruling on the spot when needed. The late groups on Saturday and Sunday are also assigned an “observer” — a backup rules official — in case there is any kind of problem or controversy.
In Mahan’s case, neither the rules official nor the observer was able to come up with an acceptable solution. So a call went out for one of the roving officials to come and help. The rovers are just what they sound like — officials who patrol different areas of the golf course to intervene if needed in a situation like this. The walking rules officials are often men and women who are not full-time rules officials — the players call them amateurs, even though they have to pass the same rules tests as the full-time officials — but people who volunteer their time during majors. The rovers are full-time officials from golf tours around the world.
The rover in the area was John Paramour, chief rules official of the European Tour. Paramour is generally considered to be as good as anyone in the world at what he does. He is a man who takes his job very seriously by day and then spends his nights cracking his colleagues up with his storytelling.
Now he rode to the rescue and, after being apprised of the situation, found a spot for Mahan to drop and continue play.
By the time Mahan got his ruling and the players were told they could continue playing, twenty-five minutes had passed. “I don’t like to make excuses,” Rocco said. “But that really bothered me. It shouldn’t happen that way under any c
ircumstances, much less during the last round of the U.S. Open.”
Woods and Westwood were unaffected by the delay. To begin with, both are slow players and they had already dropped a hole behind Rocco and Ogilvy (also a fast player) even before they got to 13. Then, when both found the ravine at 13 and had to get their own rulings on drops, they fell even further behind. In fact, if the Mahan ruling hadn’t occurred, they probably would have been a solid two holes behind Rocco and Ogilvy. By the time they reached the 15th tee, Rocco and Ogilvy were down the fairway.
Westwood had finally ended his slide at the 14th hole by driving the green and making a two-putt birdie to get back to even par. Woods had actually been hurt on the 14th by his length off the tee.
Rocco and Westwood had each hit a three-wood to try to reach the green; Woods was actually between clubs. As he explained at great length later — Woods loves to go into detail when describing clubbing decisions — he wasn’t sure whether a three-wood or a five-wood was the correct shot.
“I couldn’t have had a worse number [yardage],” Woods said. “It was a five-wood front number for me, but it was into the wind. I can’t get a five-wood there. Now, if I lean on a five-wood, which means it brings the left bunker into play, I don’t know if I can get it all the way to that left bunker. If I bail right, I have absolutely no pitch. If I hit a cut three-wood, I have a choke-down three-wood and hit a cut. That’s not exactly an easy shot. If I overcut, I’m in the right bunker with virtually no shot. If that tee would have been on the back part of the tee, I could have hit a three-wood with no problem. But it was on the front part, and I was perfectly caught between clubs. I said all right, no big deal, I can still make three laying up. I laid up to a good number, had a little wedge, and hit it a little hard and ended up making par.”
For those scoring at home, that’s 179 words to describe one decision on one shot. The only thing that took longer was the conversation between Woods and Williams before deciding to lay up.
Are You Kidding Me?: The Story of Rocco Mediate's Extraordinary Battle With Tiger Woods at the US Open Page 23
