Are You Kidding Me?: The Story of Rocco Mediate's Extraordinary Battle With Tiger Woods at the US Open (36 page)

The tournament had been launched a year earlier, with Woods as the host, when the tour event in Denver lost its corporate
sponsor and Commissioner Tim Finchem saw its demise as a way to get back into the nation’s capital, bringing Woods — who wanted
his own event, à la Palmer and Nicklaus — along with him. The presence of Woods opened the doors of Congressional, a past
and future (2011) U.S. Open site that had previously been lukewarm to hosting a weekly tour event. With Tiger’s name on it,
that changed.

Except that the host was nowhere to be found in 2008. Not only was he not in the field, he wasn’t there at all, saying that
getting on an airplane, even a private one, was too tough a week after his knee surgery. In his absence, Rocco was asked by
the tournament organizers to stand in for him at the pre-tournament sponsor party. This was normally the night that those
who put up big bucks got to shake the Great One’s hand and have their picture taken with him. They may have been disappointed
that Woods wasn’t there, but they were charmed by Rocco, who did the glad-handing and picture-taking and told funny stories
all night.

“I was happy to do it for him,” Rocco said. “He’s been my friend for a long time and I genuinely like the guy. If I could
help out, why not?”

He played well again in Washington, coming back after an opening-round 73 to shoot 68–67–66 and finish in a tie for 18th place.
Two weeks later, he was tied for the lead after one round of the British Open and had people murmuring that maybe he could
do it again. But a very tough, windy golf course — Royal Birkdale — wore him out the last couple of days, and he finished
tied for 19th. In all, a very solid run.

Which was important for one reason: He desperately wanted to make the Ryder Cup team. In the past, he had been on the fringe
of contention for Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams but had never been on one. With Paul Azinger as captain and with four
captain’s picks available — as opposed to two in the past — the consensus was that Rocco would be an ideal pick even if he
didn’t finish in the top eight in the standings and earn one of the automatic spots.

“I think I can help this team,” he said. “It’s going to be a little bit younger than in the past and I’m, well, older. I’m
not going to be intimidated by anything the Europeans do or by any of their guys. I’ll go into the room and raise some hell
and say let’s go kick some butts. If I keep playing well, I would think Zinger will pick me.”

Azinger wanted to pick Rocco for his experience, his enthusiasm, and his competitiveness. This would be a different U.S. team
than the one that had lost the last three Ryder Cups, if for no other reason than the fact that Woods wouldn’t be there. Many
people in golf thought this might be a good thing for the U.S. because Woods had never liked playing in the Ryder Cup much,
and his relatively mediocre (10–13–2) record was a reflection of that.

With Woods hurt and Davis Love III and Fred Couples not playing well enough for various reasons (age, injuries) to be on the
team, the only player with a lot of experience was Phil Mickelson, who had played on six Ryder Cup teams with mixed success.
What’s more, Mickelson wasn’t going to be a vocal “Let’s go kick some butts” kind of leader. Rocco could play that role.

“Basically, Zinger has said to me I need to just keep playing well and not worry about standings or anything else,” Rocco
said the week before the PGA Championship. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Problem is, right now I’m really tired.”

The schedule made taking a break impossible. In addition to playing almost every week, he was doing outings almost every Monday,
posing for magazine covers, still responding to all the interview requests, and trying to help Linda and the kids get settled
in Seattle. Linda had started dating someone who lived there and decided to make the move to the Pacific Northwest. Rocco
was delighted, since he was spending most of his time in Los Angeles and the flight from there to Seattle was a lot easier
than flying from there to Naples.

“It’s great,” he said of the family’s move. “I met the guy and he’s terrific. I think this is a good thing for everybody.”

C
INDI HAD FLOWN EAST
for the World Golf Championship event in Akron — which brought back memories for Rocco because he had first met Tom Watson
at Firestone Country Club twenty-seven years earlier — and for the PGA Championship, which was at Oakland Hills, outside Detroit.

Rocco played a good first round in Akron but again wore out as the week went on. He also played solidly in the first two rounds
of the PGA, making the cut easily by shooting 73–74.

Cindi woke up Saturday morning prior to the third round of the PGA not feeling well. She was running a low-grade fever and
looked and felt weak. “It’s something that happens to me fairly often,” she said. “It can be an infection, it can be fluid
on the kidneys, it can be a lot of things.”

Rocco knew Cindi wasn’t feeling good when she told him she just didn’t have the energy to go to the golf course that day.
“When she says she can’t make it to the golf course, I know it’s bad,” he said. “I wanted to withdraw and stay with her, but
she wouldn’t hear it. She said, ‘It’s a major and you have to try to play well because of the Ryder Cup. I’ll be fine; just
go and play well. That will make me feel better.’ ”

Reluctantly, he agreed. He called his friend and then-agent, Tom Elliott, and asked him to come over and keep an eye on Cindi
while he went to play. “If anything happens, text me,” he said.

On the 14th hole, he got a text. Elliott and Cindi were on the way to the hospital. He was
not
to leave the golf course. He finished the round — shooting 72 to put himself in respectable position in a tie for 22nd place
— and went straight to the hospital.

Cindi’s fever was spiking. This had happened before, but it was still frightening. Rocco spent the night in the hospital and
never slept for a minute. Cindi was feeling a little bit better in the morning and told him he had to go and play. He did,
but the combination of exhaustion and concern made it impossible to focus or to play well at all. He shot an embarrassing
85 — embarrassing if you didn’t know the circumstances — and finished in 72nd place. Then he went straight back to the hospital.

Cindi was there for a week. By the time Rocco got her home to Los Angeles, he had only forty-eight hours there before he flew
on a red-eye to New Jersey to play in the Barclays championships — the first of the so-called playoff tournaments created
by the tour a year earlier to add a post-majors climax to the season. There was a lot of money on the table — $10 million
to the FedEx Cup winner — but in spite of endless promotional gambits by the tour, there just was not that much interest,
with baseball closing in on the climax of its season and the college football and NFL seasons beginning.

Rocco missed the cut at Barclays, the first cut he had missed since the Byron Nelson in late April. He played respectably
the first day, shooting a 70, but was completely gassed the next morning and shot 77 to miss the cut. The sensible thing to
do at that point would have been to take it easy for a couple of days and then head to Boston, the next playoff spot and,
more important, the last tournament before Azinger would name his Ryder Cup team.

“I called Paul to tell him what was going on with Cindi,” he said. “I didn’t want him to think by flying back to L.A. I wasn’t
aware of the fact that it was important that I play well in Boston. He had said all along that he was going to take into account
your entire body of work, but he also wanted guys who were playing well down the stretch. Other than New Jersey, I’d been
playing pretty well all summer. Paul knew what had happened on the last day of the PGA, so I wasn’t worried about that. I
said to him, ‘Hey, I hope you understand why I need to go…’

“Before I finished the sentence he said, ‘Are you kidding? Get your butt on a plane and get out there.’ ”

So he did. Cindi had rallied. She was ready to go with him to Boston the next week, which was important to Rocco. He wanted
her with him on the golf course and with him when Azinger named his team on Tuesday, September 2, the day after the Boston
tournament ended. (It finished on Monday because it was Labor Day weekend.)

In a way, Boston was a repeat of Detroit. Rocco played well the first two days, shooting 69–70, which put him in a tie for
18th place. But Cindi was sick again on Sunday and had to go back to the hospital, this time Massachusetts General in downtown
Boston. Again, she told Rocco he had to play and that he
had
to get his rest so there wouldn’t be a repeat of the 85. He tried. He shot a respectable 71 on Sunday in the third round
but simply had nothing left on Monday, shooting 74. That dropped him into a tie for 69th place. Again, under the circumstances,
it was pretty good golf.

He went back to the hospital as soon as he was finished playing on Monday. Cindi was still too weak to even think about traveling.
The next morning he was sitting next to her bed shortly after nine o’clock when his cell phone rang. As soon as Rocco saw
the number come up, he knew it was bad news.

“It was Zinger,” he said later. “The press conference to announce the captain’s picks was at ten. If I was on the team, he
wouldn’t need to call me to keep me from hearing bad news at the same time everyone else heard it. Before I even answered
the phone, I knew I wasn’t on the team.”

He was right. Azinger was almost apologetic. “I just have to go with what my gut tells me is the best thing,” he said. “I
can’t even really explain to you why you’re out and these other guys are in.”

The other guys were Hunter Mahan, J. B. Holmes, Chad Campbell, and Steve Stricker. Only Campbell had any previous Ryder Cup
experience. He had played well in Boston, tying for sixth, and that seemed to have swayed Azinger in his direction.

As soon as Rocco hung up the phone and told Cindi the news, she began to cry. “I just thought it was unfair,” she said. “Zinger
knew what was going on in his life, the distractions he’d had, and he
still
hadn’t played badly. He missed one cut [New Jersey] all summer.”

Even though he was crushed when he wasn’t chosen, Rocco tried to be philosophical about it. The U.S. won the matches with
a dominant performance at Valhalla Country Club outside Louisville in late September, and Azinger was lauded for his selections
and his leadership. The next time Rocco saw Azinger was in the parking lot at the TPC of Summerlin prior to the start of the
tournament in Las Vegas in October. He walked over to him, congratulated him on the win, and gave him a hug.

“I was thrilled that they won,” he said. “I really was. Hey, Zinger’s been a friend for years and the guys on the team were
my friends. He did a great job; he made the right choices. Was I disappointed? Sure, of course. But he had to do what he thought
was best for the team and he was proven correct by the results.”

Did he watch that weekend?

“Not much. I had other things to do.”

Enough said.

C
INDI’S HEALTH CONTINUED TO BE AN ISSUE
throughout the fall and into the winter. A kidney transplant was not a viable option.

Rocco played in two more official tournaments before the end of the year. He shot an opening-round 71 in Las Vegas before
withdrawing because his knee was sore. “Being honest, I could have played if I’d had to,” he said. “But I just didn’t feel
quite right, and there was no need to take any risk.”

A week later he finished tied for 29th in Scottsdale, then flew to Florida to tape the ADT Skills Challenge, a postseason
unofficial event that is part of what is known in golf as “the Silly Season.” (The PGA Tour prefers “Challenge Season,” which
is a lovely euphemism.) The tournaments have no meaning and are basically hit-and-giggle events in which players load up on
extra cash.

Because he had received so much attention at the Open and after the Open, Rocco had been invited to almost every Silly Season
event that existed: the Skills Challenge, the Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge in Las Vegas, the Skins Game, and the Shark Shootout.
Even though a rest might have been a good thing, these were events with guaranteed money and the chance to make more if you
played well. So he accepted all the invitations.

Cindi was scheduled to go to Florida with Rocco for the taping of the Skills Challenge and for the final official tournament
of the year at Disney World. But she was in the hospital again. As a result, Rocco withdrew from the Disney event after the
Skills Challenge.

A week before Thanksgiving — and the Skins Game, which was Thanksgiving weekend — Cindi went back into the hospital for tests
and more treatment. The doctors were hoping to find that her left kidney was not functioning at all and that the right kidney
was working well enough to keep her going on its own. The plan, in that case, would have been to remove the left kidney, reducing
the chances of infection.

“Unfortunately, they found it was still working at about eleven percent,” she said. “I need every little bit I can get, so
they decided to leave it in.”

Cindi was as sick the week before Thanksgiving as she had been all year. Her fever, which had often gotten to 102 in the past,
spiked at 105 and stayed there for more than a week. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong. Finally, they discovered
a severe blood infection that they were able to treat, and the fever came down. By Thanksgiving Day she was sitting up in
bed, still weak but feeling much better.

It was just prior to that hospital visit that Cindi was introduced to Rocco’s three boys, who came to Los Angeles to visit
their dad and meet her. When they came back for the Skins Game, Rocco took the three of them to see Cindi in the hospital,
where the beginnings of a friendship were formed.

Rocco was the star of the Skins Game even though he finished fourth, winning one Skin and $140,000. With K. J. Choi (who won),
Phil Mickelson, and Stephen Ames the other three players, Rocco’s humor was desperately needed to lighten the mood. He kept
up a constant chatter (the players are miked) throughout the event even though his mind was 150 miles to the west of Palm
Springs, in Cindi’s hospital room.