Ron Kantowski applauds Tiger Woods’ little-known U.S. Open challenger, but doubts we’ll remember him

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It was late Monday evening, hours after my co-workers had retreated from the office TV sets to go about their business. A guy named Rocco and another named Tiger — it could have been worse, they could have been named “Fuzzy” — had been playing golf and it was special — so special, in fact, that it took a guy who is really good with words, like Rick Reilly, to put it into perspective.

Reilly was doing this on TV, which was noteworthy and even kind of sad, at least to those of us who used to read him on the back page of Sports Illustrated. The guy named Tiger won, because the guy named Tiger always wins, but Reilly said the guy named Rocco would be remembered, too — not just because he has a cool name, but because he gave it his all.

Or something to that effect.

The sport of golf, Reilly said, will eventually forget that a 45-year-old journeyman named Rocco Mediate lost a thrilling U.S. Open playoff against Tiger Woods on a glorious Monday in suburban San Diego in 2008. But that we — “we” as in the average sports fan, “we” as in the guy who doesn’t know a sand wedge from a sandwich, “we” as in the guy who drinks beer in the gallery and yells, “It’s in the hole,” even when it’s nowhere close to the hole — will always remember Rocco Mediate, because he was the Everyman who did all of us other Everymen proud.

Or something to that effect.

This is where Rick Reilly and I disagree. Not that I still wouldn’t like to put my name on the rough drafts that wind up in the bottom of his trash can. But I think golf will remember Rocco Mediate long after the general public forgets him, because almost nobody remembers Bob May, the Las Vegas golfer who was the original Rocco Mediate eight years ago.

May didn’t wear a peace sign belt buckle, just a drab khaki-olive shirt and trousers that fit his personality, at least according to the Aug. 28, 2000, edition of Sports Illustrated. The magazine said that May, at the time a 31-year-old journeyman, had forced Woods to produce the “most clutch performance of an already legendary career” to finally subdue the Summerlin resident in a three-hole playoff at the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.

“This was golf to raise the dead,” wrote SI’s Alan Shipnuck after bearing witness to a back nine that was so riveting, so epic, so suspenseful that ... well, I should remember it better.

“It was an incredible battle,” Woods would say. “We never backed off. Birdie for birdie, shot for shot, that’s as good as it gets.”

But didn’t it get a little better Monday?

Everybody said it did. Including Tiger. “I think this is probably the best ever,” said the Lord of the Links.

That’s the thing about golf, about sports, about Batman movies. Just when you don’t think they can get any better, Christian Bale comes around, and they do.

So years from now, I wonder if I will remember standing around the office TV set with my co-workers, drawn to it as if a Pulitzer Prize-winning expose were attached to the volume control. Even the education reporter was transfixed as each dramatic twist led to an equally dramatic turn.

Will there come a day when I tell somebody else’s kids that while I wasn’t a golf fan, I played one on TV, or at least near the TV, when Tiger Woods and ... uh ... um ... what was that guy’s name? ... went short iron (Tiger) to long iron (the other guy) in one of the greatest golf matches ever played?

Only time and any advancements in medical technology that may retard memory loss will tell.

But my prediction is that years from now, when golf gets around to honoring its almost greats and near misses, Bob May and Rocco Mediate will occupy the main table with Jean Van de Velde, giving each other that quizzical “Where-do-I-know-you-from?” look.

Then Paul Lawrie will sidle over to take their order.

Click here to read Ron Kantowski’s blog,“Now and Then.”