Don’t Forget The ‘Loser’
Okay, so Tiger Woods is one of the most amazing athletes on the planet – with 14 majors to his credit, he’s closing in on Nicklaus’s 18, and he pulled this one off weeks after his third knee surgery (so bad is his knee that Tiger is considering skipping the British Open, though I hope he changes his mind). It wasn’t pretty, but the U.S. Open is never pretty – it is a tournament famously designed to make even par the winning score.
Let’s tip our hats to Rocco Mediate, however, who no doubt feels horrible to let his first possible major slip away. He can take consolation in more than just his gigantic career-best check for second, though…this is a 45-year-old man with a bad back who came in ranked 158th in the world, and had to go through the grueling process of qualifying by making it through sectionals to even get an entry into the main event. So keep your chin up, Rocco – you done good…
Rocco has nothing to be ashamed of, he said he wanted to test himself against the best – the essence of sport – and he did, having come up, as he said, a wee bit short. To top that, he then proves himself the ultimate sportsman by being gracious in defeat. For me, one of the best outcomes of this US Open is that I had the opportunity to get to know a bit more about Rocco Mediate. He is a wonderful example to those of us that compete, in anything, of the why and how it is to be done.