Rocco enjoys the afterglow

The golfer's Everyman appeal, especially after taking Tiger Woods to a playoff in the U.S. Open, continues to win over fans and draw appreciative galleries.

By SHAWN WINDSOR, Detroit Free Press

Last update: August 7, 2008 - 11:43 PM

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, MICH. - On the fourth hole of the first round of the 90th PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, Rocco Mediate, golf's newest everyman, buried his tee shot into the dense jungle of rough down the right side of the fairway. It was the kind of lie that almost assuredly causes a bogey.

Mediate, not known for his length on the golf course, approached the ball and immediately began chatting with the gallery, roped off a few feet from his ball.

"With my strength," he deadpanned, "this will be no problem."

Laughter rippled through the crowd. And the man who nearly took down Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open saw an opening to bond with his increasingly adoring public.

Mediate, who shot an up-and-down, 3-over 73 Thursday, spent a month on the talk-show circuit following his playoff showdown with Woods. At 45, he suddenly found himself invited to the White House for dinner and the object of autograph seekers who hadn't a clue to his identity before the Open at Torrey Pines in June. Yet here he was Thursday afternoon in Bloomfield Township, yakking it up with anyone who would listen.

"I'm actually using them for a release of nervous energy," Mediate said.

Between conversations, he actually played golf, hitting high draws down the middle of the fairway, making a couple of birdies, a few bogeys, grimacing, laughing, gesturing to the crowd, making them feel every missed putt, every found bunker.

And the crowd couldn't get enough.

Jay Ronan, an 18-year-old former high school player from Farmington Hills, Mich., honored his new hero Thursday by wearing a homemade "I Love Rocco" T-shirt.

Why?

"He seems like a regular guy," Ronan said. "And he's funny."

Early in the round, as Mediate waited to hit a shot from the fifth fairway, he noticed Ronan and his friend, Zack Durham, who was wearing a similarly imprinted ode to Rocco.

Mediate pointed to the young fans and nodded, before breaking into an easy grin and shaking his head. A couple of years ago he'd considered retiring because of chronic back pain; now he was collecting groupies.

Has all this attention overwhelmed him?

"Oh, yeah, sure it has," he said -- candor that only fuels his popularity. "You just get so tired sometimes. ... But you know, when you sign up to do something, that's part of the territory. So it's pretty much a learning experience."

Everywhere he went Thursday someone was calling out his name as he posted six bogeys, including one on the 18th, and three birdies.

"Hey, Rocco!" Or "Way to go, Rocco." Or "We love you, Rocco!"

The refrains echoed as he made his way around the challenging course. There was an intimacy to the whole exchange in a way that isn't possible with Tiger, say, or even with Phil Mickelson, whose drooping, fleshy gait suggests to many a connection with the Average Joe.

Still, fans know in their gut that Mickelson is nothing like them. Mediate, on the other hand, looks like we do when he plays.

"I feel like that I'm just like everybody else," Mediate said. "I just play golf a bit better."