Rocco Anthony Mediate (born December 17, 1962) is an American

professional golfer A professional golfer is somebody who receives payments or financial rewards in the sport of golf that are directly related to their skill or reputation. A person who earns money by teaching or playing golf is traditionally considered a "golf pr ...

who has won six times on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

and three times on the PGA Tour Champions. In the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines South Course, he finished runner-up after losing the first sudden-death hole after an 18-hole playoff to

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in List of golfers with most PGA Tour wins, PGA Tour wins, ranks second in List of men's major championships winning golfers, men's m ...

. In

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

, Mediate won the Senior PGA Championship, one of the five senior majors.

Early life

Mediate was born in

Greensburg, Pennsylvania Greensburg is a city in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. The population was 14,976 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located southeast of Pittsburgh, Greensburg is a part of the Greater Pittsbu ...

. According to the

Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply "Golf" or "NBC Golf") is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently ba ...

, he is the son of a barber and has Italian ancestral heritage. Mediate attended Hempfield Area High School.

Amateur career

Mediate attended

Florida Southern College Florida Southern College (Florida Southern, Southern or FSC) is a private college in Lakeland, Florida. In 2019, the student population at FSC consisted of 3,073 students along with 130 full-time faculty members. It offers undergraduate, gradua ...

and was a member of the

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

team. His close friend Lee Janzen, another

pro, also played there. They helped lead Florida Southern to the 1985 Division II national team championship.

Professional career

Mediate turned professional in 1985. His golfing career has been marred by back trouble. Early on, he compensated by using a long putter. In 1991 he became the first player to win on the

using a long putter when he won the Doral-Ryder Open. He picked up another victory at the 1993 KMart Greater Greensboro Open, but he then had a long layoff due to a ruptured disk. He underwent major back surgery in 1999, but lost practically five years of his career. Back pain returned in 2004 and later nearly ended his career. Bio of Mediate
Gaylord Sports Mediate returned to the Tour in 1996 playing under a special medical extension and performed steadily. He picked up wins on the Tour in 1999, 2000 and 2002. After improving his fitness to minimize his back problems, he returned to using a conventional putter in 2003. On October 9, 2006, it was announced that Mediate would become an on-course reporter for

The Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply "Golf" or "NBC Golf") is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently ba ...

's 2007 PGA Tour coverage. Mediate has been featured in the top 20 of the

Official World Golf Ranking The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolling ...

and considered to be one of the best putters in golf. At the 2006 Masters, Mediate was in contention to win the event on the final day until he took a septuple-bogey ten on the par-three 12th hole. His best finish in a major championship was a second-place showing at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines South Course. Tied with

at -1 after regular tournament play, then tied again at even par through the 18 hole playoff, Woods finally bested Mediate on the first hole (hole #7) of sudden death, the 91st hole of the tournament. It was only the third time a U.S. Open playoff had gone to sudden death. Mediate's performance gained him 111 spots in the world golf rankings, moving him from 158th to 47th place. Mediate earned his first win since 2002 at the 2010 Frys.com Open by beating Bo Van Pelt and Alex Prugh by one shot. During the tournament, Mediate holed out all four days. He started on Thursday, with a hole-in-one on the 189 yard par-3 3rd hole. On Friday, he holed out from 160 yards on the par-4 4th hole for an eagle, followed on Saturday with a hole-out from 111 yards on the par-5 15th hole, also for eagle. On Sunday, he was tied for the lead on the 17th hole when he holed from 116 yards for eagle to take a two-shot lead. He parred the 18th to win the tournament. He also became the oldest wire-to-wire winner on the PGA Tour since at least 1970. Mediate has PGA Tour career earnings of over $16 million. Mediate joined the Champions Tour for 2013 after turning 50 and his exemption for his 2010 PGA Tour win ended. He won in his debut at the Allianz Championship, the 16th Champions Tour player to do so. After shooting a 61 in the second round, he claimed victory by two strokes over Bernhard Langer and Tom Pernice Jr. with a birdie at the last hole. He won his second Champions Tour tournament that September, at the Shaw Charity Classic. Mediate finished seven strokes ahead of runner-up, Tom Byrum. In May 2016, Mediate won his first senior major championship at the Senior PGA Championship, with a three-stroke victory over the defending champion

Colin Montgomerie Colin Stuart Montgomerie (born 23 June 1963) is a Scottish professional golfer. He has won a record eight European Tour PGA European Tour#Order of Merit winners, Order of Merit titles, including a streak of seven consecutive ones from 1993 to 1 ...

. His winning total of 265 (−19) broke the previous record by three and was the first wire-to-wire victory at the event since Jack Nicklaus in 1991. His victory was sealed when he holed out from a greenside bunker on the 71st hole of regulation play for birdie. On September 22, 2019, Mediate won the Sanford International on the PGA Tour Champions in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state, state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota people, Dakota Sioux ...

Personal life

Mediate is a distant cousin of Puerto Rico Islanders

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

player Domenic Mediate.

Professional wins (14)

PGA Tour wins (6)

PGA Tour playoff record (2–1)

Other wins (3)

Other playoff record (0–1)

PGA Tour Champions wins (5)

PGA Tour Champions playoff record (1–0)

Results in major championships

CUT = missed the half-way cut
WD = Withdrew
"T" = tied

Summary

*Most consecutive cuts made – 8 (1991 PGA – 1993 PGA) *Longest streak of top-10s – 1 (four times)

Results in The Players Championship

CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place

Results in World Golf Championships

¹Cancelled due to 9/11
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
WD = Withdrew
"T" = tied
NT = No Tournament

Senior major championships

Wins (1)

Results timeline

''Results not in chronological order before 2022.'' CUT = missed the halfway cut
WD = withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place
NT = no tournament due to

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

U.S. national team appearances

Professional *

UBS Cup The UBS Cup was a team golf tournament contested by the United States and a team representing the "Rest of the World" which ran from 2001 to 2004. In 2001 and 2002 it was called the UBS Warburg Cup. Six golfers on each side had to be 50 or over, and ...

: 2003 (tie) * Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge (representing PGA Tour): 2000 (winners), 2008

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mediate, Rocco American male golfers Florida Southern Moccasins men's golfers PGA Tour golfers PGA Tour Champions golfers Winners of senior major golf championships Golfers from Pennsylvania Golfers from Florida American people of Italian descent Sportspeople from Greensburg, Pennsylvania Sportspeople from Naples, Florida 1962 births Living people 20th-century American sportsmen