Are You Kidding Me?: The Story of Rocco Mediate's Extraordinary Battle With Tiger Woods at the US Open (30 page)

“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, Woods 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 circumstances,
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.