The 2008 US Open is a moment forever etched in golf history. For Tiger Woods, it was the biggest win of his illustrious golf career, and it was what would have been Rocco Mediate.
Playing on a leg with two stress fractures in his tibia and a knee that had just been removed from arthroscopic surgery, Woods gritted his teeth and walked to the 54-hole lead at Torrey Pines. But he opened his final round with a double bogey on the first and a bogey on the second to fall behind Mediate. Woods hit 9 and 11 to jump back to the top, but bogeys on 13 and 15 dropped him behind Mediate, who posted a 1-under-par score for the tournament. Woods bogeyed 16 and 17 and needed a birdie on the par-5 18th to force a playoff.
Woods connected his tee shot into the fairway bunker and hit a misaligned layup that left him 96 yards from the front of the green in the rough right. Mlamuli, who was watching from the scorer’s tent, knew that Woods would give himself a chance but he believes that it will be difficult for Woods to stop the ball near the damaged pin.
Woods caught a strong leg with a 60-degree wedge, and the ball stayed past the pin and bounced back, giving him 12 feet for birdie. Woods birdied it to force an 18-hole playoff the following Monday, which he won on the first extra hole.
Medite joined GOLF’s Subpar Podcast to discuss his PGA Tour career, advice from Arnold Palmer and his famous matchup with Woods at Torrey Pines. Woods expected to make a 12-footer on the 72nd hole, but it was the way it went that he had to ask the 15-time winner when they were going to make the par later.
“Tiger made the putt, which, I wasn’t surprised about,” Mediate told hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “But a year later, I asked him — I haven’t spoken to him but twice since then. I said, ‘Okay, tell me about the gun at 18.’ I said, ‘You have to tell me. You can’t stop that ball.’ He looked down, and he went, ‘It was an old divot.’ I went, ‘Of course it is!’ It was swinging! Kikuyu. So it was an old divot, and he could get the club on it. Now, if it wasn’t, he might have been able to find a way to blow it up there. This is the greatest player ever.
“But when you see the gun, it hit, I saw it go down, and I said uh-oh.” And then it caught on, and I was like, what was that about? How did that work? Then everyone else, of course, you will succeed.”
You can listen to the full subpar podcast here, or watch the YouTube video below.
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