While golf fans of a certain age probably know Rocco Mediate best for being the last player standing between Tiger Woods and the 2008 US Open title, the 61-year-old also has a place in PGA Tour folklore for a completely different reason.
For nearly 11 years, the 2008 US Open was the most recent major win of Tiger Woods‘ career. Woods essentially clinched victory at Torrey Pines with a broken leg. If that was not remarkable enough, Woods needed 91 holes over five days to get the job done.
Of course, it was Rocco Mediate who was beaten in sudden death after an 18 hole play-off. Many will remember that electric moment Woods holed his birdie putt from 12 feet on Sunday just to force a play-off with Mediate. Many will also remember Mediate immediately insisting that he knew exactly where the putt was going.
He may have missed out on a major title that week, but Mediate did create his own piece of history on the PGA Tour 17 years earlier as he became the first player to win on the tour while using a long putter.
Rocco Mediate sheds light on decision he made which led to accusations of cheating
Mediate had not won heading into 1991, with his coach believing that his biggest problem was on the greens. And after an inspired practice round using a broomstick putter, Mediate initially decided to use it on tour.
It brought him success as he won the Doral-Ryder Open, but, as he told Golf Channel, it also saw Mediate come in for plenty of criticism.
“I practiced with it all winter, really I felt great. I didn’t really have much of a back issue back then, but it felt better to practice all day, standing up like this, not bent over at all at 49 inches,” he said.
“Anyway, long story short, get to the first event, I’m getting beat up out there with this long putter. They’re like, ‘what are you doing? You’re cheating’. I’m like, ‘well, I’m not cheating, it’s not against the rules’. ‘It’s so stupid’, all that stuff. I didn’t like that, so the night before the first round at Tucson, the first event of the year, I said to Kenny, I went, ‘I can’t do this tomorrow’. He goes, ‘Meatball,’ that’s what he called me, ‘if you don’t show up with that putter tomorrow I’m out of here’. I went alright, so I did it.
“I started in Tucson, I had six straight top 10s and won Doral, how’s that start? But I was also top in greens in regulation and fairways. Obviously, I made more putts, but I hit it good enough to have birdie putts all the time and I ended up winning. I think I was the leading money winner going into Augusta that year, I think Woosie won there. So it made a big difference, but [I was] the antichrist. Mr Palmer hated it, Watson hated it.”
How times have changed
Everyone would love to have a putting stroke like Tiger Woods, Brad Faxon or Cameron Smith. But clearly, not everyone can be blessed with a world-class game on the greens.
While anchoring the putter has been banned since 2016, the broomstick has seemingly grown increasingly popular. Bernhard Langer was perhaps one of the most famous figures to switch to the longer putter, while Adam Scott, Byeong Hun An and Si-woo Kim were all using longer putters at the Presidents Cup last month. Dan Bradbury won the Open de France with the same type of putter at the weekend on the DP World Tour.
It certainly seems that attitudes towards the style have changed a great deal since Mediate put it in the bag more than 30 years ago.
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