Rocco Mediate on the Masters and That Tiger Guy
April 7, 2009 – 7:36 am by Will Brinson
Rocco Mediate isn’t the world’s most famous golfer, but he certainly got some help — attention wise — after losing to Tiger Woods in last year’s US Open. Enough attention, actually, for John Feinstein to write a book about the whole thing.
Rocco talked to ESPN Radio Pittsburgh about Tiger, “the US Open,” and the upcoming Masters. If you’ve never heard Rocco on air, this is highly recommended; he’s a stand-up and surprisingly hysterical guy who comes across as completely genuine on air.
On the Masters being beautiful:
“It’s way overrated, it’s not that good. You know, it’s no big deal. No one of any fame has ever won over here. No, it’s pretty cool … it’s very much, what you don’t get to see is the elevation changes and what they do around here, it’s just a beautiful place.”
On his national profile after the Tiger match in the US Open:
“Oh yeah, well you know, the thing it brought in are the people who didn’t watch golf. Some of the people who didn’t watch golf didn’t know what golf was until that day last year, that Monday. And you get a lot more people, I get 10-20 more people a day, it’s cool, it’s very cool.”
On John Feinstein’s book about Rocco:
“It’s just solely about what led up to last year and what happened. He talked to a lot of old friends … It’s weird having something written about you. John and I did a lot of work on this, and it’s a pretty cool story, really. I mean, it’s interesting, because there’s nothing that’s showing that it was going to happen. And the stuff that you’ll read in the book about how it led up to that and the things I said months before that, it all came true. It just happened to be in the US Open.”
On Masters v. US Open for prestige:
“It’s hard to say, in my mind it’s the US Open because it’s our national title.”
Listen to Rocco Mediate on ESPN Radio Pittsburgh with Stan and Guy (38:10 into podcast)
Tags: Masters, Rocco Mediate, Tiger Woods, US Open
