LA JOLLA, Calif. — The ground quaked, and the grass quivered.
Tremor? Tiger.
He sank the putt on 18. There was seismic activity at Torrey Pines late Sunday afternoon.
Rocco & Tiger, the most unlikely pair since Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck, will play on in a playoff at the U.S. Open this morning.
La Batalla en La Jolla.
A year ago Sunday, Tiger Woods needed a 25-foot putt on the final hole to force a playoff at the national championship. He missed it.
This year, he needed a 12-foot putt on the final hole to force a playoff. He made it.
A year ago Sunday, Rocco Mediate needed a king to hit his full house. He missed it.
This year, he needed every ounce of energy, every year of experience, every shot in his bag and every bit of fun to reach the playoff. He made it.
Who you gonna pull for — the greatest golfer of this century (maybe every century), or the jovial journeyman who would become the oldest player to win the U.S. Open? Tiger’s roar vs. Rocco’s uproar? Tough call. Either way, the champion will be a real winner.
You got your Tiger, who has won 13 major championships, who earns more money than any other professional athlete and is probably the most recognizable athlete on the globe.
And you got your Rocco, who has won five PGA Tour events and zero majors, who had to earn his way into the Open as qualifier (winning in a playoff against 10 others) and is not even close to being the most recognizable athlete in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
As golf’s No. 1 player, Tiger Woods plays in the World Golf Championships. Rocco Mediate, as the world’s 157th-ranked player, participated two years ago in the World Series of Poker.
Last year and this, Rocco watched Tiger’s putts on No. 18.
In 2007, Rocco was sitting in a temporary clubhouse at a golf club in Pittsburgh he designed. He was playing Texas Hold ‘Em against several other members, and there was a rather large bottle of Scotch in the middle of the table. Rocco paused in the middle of a hand and stared as Tiger left the tying putt on the high side. He didn’t win the hand.
In 2008, Rocco was standing in a temporary scorer’s trailer at Torrey Pines after finishing the Open at 1-under par and watching the last man to putt. Tiger was 12 feet away. The ball rolled. Actually, the ball bumped along on the sun-blistered, cleat-trampled green. Fifty-thousand hearts, including Rocco’s and Tiger’s, skipped 12 beats.
The ball was undecided — go in or go past. At the final millisecond, the ball Swooshed into the very edge of the cup.
Where have we seen this before? On Saturday, perhaps, when Tiger had an eagle on the hole. On so many Saturdays and Sundays before.
Rocco didn’t win the hand. But he didn’t lose it.
Deal.
“I can’t complain,” Rocco said. “I knew he’d make that putt. . . . I have nothing left right now. I’m toast. It was the most amazing day of golf I’ve ever experienced. (Today) is going to be pretty amazing, too.”
Woods, who won the 2000 PGA Championship in a playoff, said he is “looking forward” to another, obviously, because “after the start I got off to today, it looked like I could play myself right out of the tournament. But I still have a chance.”
For the third day in four, Woods double-bogeyed hole No. 1.
But it came down to a putt. Tiger has been here; Rocco mostly has been nowhere at the U.S. Open. He played in his first in 1984 and missed the cut. Since, he has failed to qualify 12 times, has missed the cut four other times and has withdrawn one time. He did come up fourth in 2001.
Tiger has won two and ended up second or third three times in 13 previous Opens.
Tiger is grimacing on a bad knee. Rocco was off the tour for three years with a bad back. Tiger is trying to make history in golf. Rocco is trying to make a living in golf.
Tiger certainly is the heavy favorite to win at the course he has played since he was a boy, but Rocco is the sentimental favorite to win at Tiger Pines. He began the day one twosome ahead of Tiger and two strokes behind. By the second hole, Rocco was up two shots.
And the game, Dr. Watson was afoot, with others — especially Woods and ‘Wood (Lee Westwood) — challenging down the stretch. Westwood spent more of Sunday in the sand than the nudists at nearby Black’s Beach, but he had his own birdie putt on 18 to be in the playoff. He missed.
Rocco, The Man In Black who had par on the final hole, survived one but not the other. He couldn’t start singing “You’re Out of the Woods” from “The Wizard of Oz,” but he never stopped enjoying himself. “I had a blast. I never had more fun and more insanity,” Mediate said.
Tiger wasn’t having so much fun on 18. He was a Sunday hacker off the tee and out of the bunker, but his wedge on the par 5 “turned out perfect,” he said, and settled a dozen feet from the hole. “The putt was probably 2 1/2 balls outside right. And the green was very smooth. I kept telling myself to make a pure stroke. If it bounces in or out, so be it. At least I can hold my head up high. I hit it exactly where I wanted to, and it went in.”
The earth moved.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
