Read Online Are You Kidding Me?: The Story of Rocco Mediate's Extraordinary Battle With Tiger Woods at the US Open by John Feinstein, Rocco Mediate - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Feinstein, Rocco Mediate
Tags: United States, History, Sports & Recreation, Golfers, Golf, 2008, U.S. Open (Golf tournament), Golfers - United States, Woods; Tiger, Mediate; Rocco
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golf more bittersweet than the first time
they successfully climb the Q-School mountain.
At the finish there is elation, exhaustion, and relief. Then comes the understanding that getting to the tour is only a small
first step, that there are many golf miles to be traveled before one is considered successful on the tour.
“At some point, no matter who you are, the thought crosses your mind, ‘Okay, I’m on the tour, but am I good enough to stay
there?’ ” Rocco has said often. “If you know anything about Q-School, it is that more than half the guys who make it through
in a given year are right back there the next year.”
Rocco’s elation on the last day at Greenlefe lasted a few hours — at most. He received congratulatory hugs from Janzen and
Dawson and joined Gleaton, who had also earned his card, for a brief post-round celebration. He called his parents and tearfully
told them he was on the tour. Soon after that he was in his car on his way back home to Greensburg — still thrilled but with
no one to talk to about what he had accomplished.
“It was a strange trip home,” he said. “On the one hand, I found myself thinking about how amazing it was that I was going
where I was going. I thought about the fact that six years earlier, I couldn’t break 80 and now I was on the PGA Tour. That
part was great.
“But it was also kind of scary, realizing how much work I had already done, but that I had that much more to do to try to
compete once I got out there. I wasn’t a college kid anymore; I was a professional golfer. It was what I wanted to be, but
I knew it wasn’t going to be at all easy. I really wanted to talk to people the whole way home, but there were no cell phones
and it was the middle of the night anyway. It was just me and all my thoughts.”
He didn’t stay home for long, heading down to Florida right after Christmas to find some warm weather so he could prepare
for his tour debut, which would come in early January at Pebble Beach. This was before the tour began its season with two
tournaments in Hawaii the way it does now.
He spent a fair amount of his time in Florida working with Rick Smith. He had met Smith through Janzen, who had grown up playing
at Imperial Lakes, the golf course where Smith’s older brother was the pro. After Rick left East Tennessee State, he had come
home to work for his brother as a jack-of-all-trades around the golf course. He had spotted Janzen, then in the seventh grade,
hitting golf balls one day and made a suggestion to him about his setup.
“He told me that I had no chance to hit the ball well setting up the way I was,” Janzen said. “I figured I had nothing to
lose by making the change he was suggesting. I felt more comfortable over the ball right away. I wasn’t very good at that
point, so I figured almost anything might help. In almost no time I went from struggling to break 100 to shooting in the low
80s. I was completely hooked. After that, every time I saw Rick, I said to him, ‘Give me something to work on.’ He always
did, and we became good friends and he became my teacher even though I wasn’t formally taking lessons from him.”
When Janzen and Rocco became friends, Janzen introduced Rocco to Smith. Although Rocco had continued to take lessons from
Jim Ferree while in college, he enjoyed working with Smith too. In Smith, he found someone young enough to be a friend and
someone as obsessed with the technique of the golf swing as he was. Plus, his teaching methods were not all that different
from Ferree’s, since a lot of Smith’s understanding of the swing came from Ferree. By the time he finished at Florida Southern,
Rocco was spending a good deal of time on the practice tee with Smith.
Nervous but excited, Rocco flew to Pebble Beach for his first tournament as a full-fledged member of the PGA Tour. In those
days, Pebble Beach was one of the more glamorous events on the tour and drew
they successfully climb the Q-School mountain.
At the finish there is elation, exhaustion, and relief. Then comes the understanding that getting to the tour is only a small
first step, that there are many golf miles to be traveled before one is considered successful on the tour.
“At some point, no matter who you are, the thought crosses your mind, ‘Okay, I’m on the tour, but am I good enough to stay
there?’ ” Rocco has said often. “If you know anything about Q-School, it is that more than half the guys who make it through
in a given year are right back there the next year.”
Rocco’s elation on the last day at Greenlefe lasted a few hours — at most. He received congratulatory hugs from Janzen and
Dawson and joined Gleaton, who had also earned his card, for a brief post-round celebration. He called his parents and tearfully
told them he was on the tour. Soon after that he was in his car on his way back home to Greensburg — still thrilled but with
no one to talk to about what he had accomplished.
“It was a strange trip home,” he said. “On the one hand, I found myself thinking about how amazing it was that I was going
where I was going. I thought about the fact that six years earlier, I couldn’t break 80 and now I was on the PGA Tour. That
part was great.
“But it was also kind of scary, realizing how much work I had already done, but that I had that much more to do to try to
compete once I got out there. I wasn’t a college kid anymore; I was a professional golfer. It was what I wanted to be, but
I knew it wasn’t going to be at all easy. I really wanted to talk to people the whole way home, but there were no cell phones
and it was the middle of the night anyway. It was just me and all my thoughts.”
He didn’t stay home for long, heading down to Florida right after Christmas to find some warm weather so he could prepare
for his tour debut, which would come in early January at Pebble Beach. This was before the tour began its season with two
tournaments in Hawaii the way it does now.
He spent a fair amount of his time in Florida working with Rick Smith. He had met Smith through Janzen, who had grown up playing
at Imperial Lakes, the golf course where Smith’s older brother was the pro. After Rick left East Tennessee State, he had come
home to work for his brother as a jack-of-all-trades around the golf course. He had spotted Janzen, then in the seventh grade,
hitting golf balls one day and made a suggestion to him about his setup.
“He told me that I had no chance to hit the ball well setting up the way I was,” Janzen said. “I figured I had nothing to
lose by making the change he was suggesting. I felt more comfortable over the ball right away. I wasn’t very good at that
point, so I figured almost anything might help. In almost no time I went from struggling to break 100 to shooting in the low
80s. I was completely hooked. After that, every time I saw Rick, I said to him, ‘Give me something to work on.’ He always
did, and we became good friends and he became my teacher even though I wasn’t formally taking lessons from him.”
When Janzen and Rocco became friends, Janzen introduced Rocco to Smith. Although Rocco had continued to take lessons from
Jim Ferree while in college, he enjoyed working with Smith too. In Smith, he found someone young enough to be a friend and
someone as obsessed with the technique of the golf swing as he was. Plus, his teaching methods were not all that different
from Ferree’s, since a lot of Smith’s understanding of the swing came from Ferree. By the time he finished at Florida Southern,
Rocco was spending a good deal of time on the practice tee with Smith.
Nervous but excited, Rocco flew to Pebble Beach for his first tournament as a full-fledged member of the PGA Tour. In those
days, Pebble Beach was one of the more glamorous events on the tour and drew
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