Rocco Mediate was a 12-foot putt from being the U.S. Open champion back in 2008. A 12-footer, on bumpy, late-afternoon Poa Annua greens, but it wasn’t Mediate himself who held destiny in his hands, it was Tiger Woods.
We all know what happened – the putt dropped, Tiger celebrated wildly, Mediate smiled knowingly, and they would head for an 18-hole playoff the following day. The last 18-hole playoff in Major Championship history, and one that Woods would eventually win after they were again tied and forced to go to sudden death holes.
In a professional career that’s now spanned 40 years, delivered six PGA Tour victories and a further five on the Champions Tour, it’s his incredible run and near-miss at Torrey Pines in 2008 that Mediate is best known for. Going head-to-head with the greatest that’s ever played, looking the Tiger in the eye and not backing down, it’s perhaps no surprise that Mediate thinks 18-hole playoffs are a good thing. After all, he lead after 17 of those 18 holes on that Monday, and when the great man birdied the 18th hole to extend it again, his only regret is that they didn’t return for another 18.
“The 18-hole playoffs are over,” he said ahead of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship. “Which is ridiculous.
“Every major should be an 18-hole playoff. And if you tie, it should be 18 more. It’s a major. It’s not a normal event.”
The main argument against 18 hole playoffs is that TV coverage windows haven’t been allocated, and that fans, volunteers and officials will all have to make last-minute plans or changes to them to attend, but he’s not concerned about that.
“[I’m] 100 percent serious,” he said. “100 percent serious. ‘Oh, but TV’. I don’t care about TV; I want the trophy.
“Sudden death at Augusta National? What? The Masters, we’re just going to have one hole? TV? Not concerned.”
By 2008, the US Open was the only one of the four majors that hadn’t scrapped the 18-hole playoff. The Masters goes to sudden death and has done so since 1970, the Open Championship is contested over four additional holes if there is a tie after 72 holes and then goes to sudden death if the aggregate scores are still tied and that’s the way it’s been since 1985 when they too scrapped the 18-hole playoff.
The PGA Championship last had an 18-hole playoff in 1967, but had changed to sudden death when a playoff was next required a decade later, and it wasn’t until 1996 that the format was changed again to become a three-hole aggregate-score playoff.
But Mediate, speaking from experience, feels that nothing beats a full 18-holes, man against man, to decide who gets their hands on the trophy.
“The Open, I have no… you know if I had three-putted from three feet to lose, it probably wouldn’t be OK to talk about it but that didn’t happen,” he said.
“When you lose something and get beat, you get beat. There’s nothing else you can really say. It was awful fun trying.
“That was the most fun I’ve ever had playing golf. For sure, bar none. I wish I could do it again.”
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