Jun 20 2009
Are You Kidding Me? by Rocco Mediate & John Feinstein
As the players struggle to get their rounds in at rain soaked Bethpage Black what better time to take a look back at last years amazing US Open golf tournament. Are You Kidding Me?: The Story of Rocco Mediate’s Extraordinary Battle with Tiger Woods at the US Open by Rocco Mediate and John Feinstein does just that and in entertaining and enlightening fashion.
For those of you not golf fans, or who inexplicably didn’t follow the amazing events of last year, here is recap. Tiger Woods was coming of April knee surgery and hadn’t played a 18-hole round of golf before the US Open started. Many wondered if Tiger would finish the tournament. But if Tiger is in the field then he is the favorite; and he had won at Torry Pines, the US Open site, many times including earlier that year at the Buick Open.
Rocco Mediate was a successful PGA journeyman whose bad back had kept him from achieving the kind of success his talent might have brought him. He was more famous for his talkative demeanor than for competing in majors. If you had to pick a player that would challenge Tiger Woods for a major championship, and in spectacular fashion, you would not have picked Mediate.
But last year these two very different golfers produced one of the most memorable US Opens in golf history. Tiger mixed in some very ugly golf with the kind of shots only Tiger can make to storm to the lead after 54 holes. Thirteen times before Tiger has taken the lead after three rounds and thirteen times he has won. And yet Mediate pushed Tiger to the brink; twice forcing him to make birdie on the final hole to stay alive.
Mediate in turn frequently seemed about to fade away and let Tiger grab another spectacular win. But on numerous occasions he pulled himself together and played remarkable golf in the most pressure cooker of situations (three successive birdies on the Monday playoff to take it too sudden death). In the end it took Tiger 92 holes to beat Rocco. Tiger may have had a bad knee, but Rocco still forced arguably the greatest golfer of all time, and one of sports most dominant competitors, to use everything he had to win. And Tiger labeled it his greatest win ever.
You don’t have to be a golf or sports fan to appreciate the drama and appeal of this story. But what Mediate and Feinstein offer in Are You Kidding Me? is not just a shot by shot recap of the tournament – although the coverage of the event is well done – but rather a better understanding of the person and golfer behind it. Keep Reading
