Gerry Dulac: Rocco Mediate gave US Open some of its most memorable moments

PITTSBURGH — Rocco Mediate will not be in the field of 156 players when the U.S. Open returns to Oakmont, about 30 miles from his hometown of Greensburg.

He stopped playing in the U.S. Open in 2010, shortly after he joined the PGA Tour Champions. His missed cut at Pebble Beach was his final appearance in the national championship.

But Mediate, now 62, sure has left his mark on the tournament.

Never mind that he's a six-time winner on the PGA Tour who has won five times on the Champions Tour, including a senior major. His 40-year career will always be remembered for being involved in two of the biggest and memorable moments in recent U.S. Open history.

His 19-hole playoff loss to Tiger Woods in 2008 at Torrey Pines is considered one of the most epic and grittiest duels in the national tournament, a battle that still gets talked about and replayed as much as any major showdown.

And, in 1994 at Oakmont, Mediate was paired for the first two rounds with Arnold Palmer in what would be Palmer's final appearance at the U.S. Open. It was a special moment for Mediate, who grew up right down Route 30 from Palmer's home in Latrobe. And it was a special moment for the world of golf.

"The most amazing thing I've seen in sports," Mediate said.

Mediate decided to play in 1994 despite a back injury that would require surgery one month later because of the chance to play with Palmer, who was given a special exemption by the USGA to play in the tournament. The crowds that followed the two Western Pennsylvania guys, yelling Palmer's name and following the King's every move, are something Mediate will never forget.

Palmer shot 81 in the second round in searing heat and missed the cut, three-putting the last five greens. When they walked off the 18th green, Palmer put his arm around Mediate, who whispered in his ear, "Thanks for making all this possible."

It was an emotional moment for Palmer, who broke down in the media room and exited to a standing ovation from the writers who covered him for so many years. And it was for Mediate, too.

"The most special thing you could ever ask for," Mediate said recently.

"I got to do so much with him over the years, I never took it for granted. It was always special. He'd sit in the cart and watch me hit balls at Latrobe or Laurel [Valley] and even Bay Hill, for that matter. He'd watch me hit balls and he'd say, 'Why don't you win more?' And I'd say, 'Because I'm not you.'

"With him, it was just special. I was just very lucky to be able to talk to him or call him or go see him anytime I wanted — and I did. I took advantage of that."

The incredible scene that unfolded that day along Hulton Road was the only time Mediate played in a U.S. Open at Oakmont. He didn't make it in 2007 because he lost in an 11-man playoff in a 36-hole sectional qualifier in Columbus, Ohio. But that was just a prelude to what would happen a year later.

In a gripping final round at Torrey Pines, the 47-year-old Mediate was going shot for shot with Woods, the world's No. 1 player, and appeared to be on the verge of his first major victory. But Woods made a 12-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole — it is one of the most replayed putts of his legendary career — to force a Monday playoff.

The playoff was even better. Woods, playing on a bad knee that would require surgery two days later, had a three-stroke lead after 10 holes. But Mediate, with the crowd chanting his name, made three consecutive birdies to take a one-shot lead heading to the par-5 18th. Like the day before, Woods birdied the hole to take the playoff into sudden death, only the third in U.S. Open history.

It lasted one hole. Woods won his 14th major title and third U.S. Open when he parred and Mediate bogeyed the first extra hole. Just like that, it was over.

"That was the coolest time I ever had playing golf, regardless of the outcome," Mediate said. "The saddest thing to me was not [not] winning but not being able to keep playing. You had 30,000 people. It was crazy. It was so much fun, it just being us two. It was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think.

"It was the coolest thing of all time and it's never going to happen again because there are no 18-hole playoffs anymore. I think every major should be an 18-hole playoff on Monday. A lot of them do not turn out like Tiger and mine because of the insanity that, all of a sudden, it became a match on the back side."

Mediate would win one more time on the PGA Tour — the 2010 Frys.com Open — before joining the PGA Tour Champions. Among his five victories was the 2016 Senior PGA Championship. When he won the Constellation Furyk and Friends tournament last year at age 62, it meant the Greensburg native won a professional tournament in every decade since his 20s.

"That would be normal for some people," Mediate said. "But it's me, so it's way abnormal."

Mediate was 29 when he beat world No. 1 Curtis Strange, at that time the reigning two-time U.S. Open champion, in a Monday playoff in the 1991 Doral-Ryder Open for his first professional victory. At the time, he became the first player to win a PGA Tour event using a long anchored putter.

Through it all, after almost 900 professional starts, the U.S. Open memories remain at the forefront of his consciousness.

"It was above what I thought would ever happen and probably way above what anybody else thought would happen," Mediate said, laughing. "It's a lot. I still can't even believe it."