Platters of pasta and hot peppers followed. Cavernous bowls of spumoni topped everything off.
It was Memorial Day weekend, and Mediate was back in the house where it all began.
"It always used to be, 'Hey, Dad, buy me this golf club, buy me that golf club,' " Anthony Mediate said while standing in his kitchen, whipping up dishes and needling his son. "I'd always say, 'Rocco, why don't you go find a girl?' "
Twenty-one years after he became a professional golfer, Mediate is still pursuing the game that has loved him and left him, sometimes on the same afternoon. Golf has wrecked his back, tempted him in the majors and caused him personal strife.
Golf has earned him more than $12 million, given comforts to a wife and three sons, and graced him with five victories.
Mediate's career is representative of many on the PGA Tour, golfers late in their careers still waiting for the defining moment that winning a major championship would be. The 43-year-old Mediate has gone around and around the Tour for years, staying in the same hotels, dining in the same restaurants. His life has been touched by achievements and setbacks.
At Winged Foot Golf Club, more than two months after his back seized up while he was in contention in the final round of the Masters, Mediate will make his 12th trip to a United States Open with enough scar tissue to match any of his peers.
"I'm calling this 'Rocky VII,' " Mediate said of his comebacks. "If I get to 'Rocky X,' I'm done."
For most of his career, Mediate has stepped onto a golf course not knowing if a swing would be his last. He has tried Pilates, acupuncture and surgery. He has worked with physical trainers.
Mediate has existed in a space far below the star level of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. His best finish in a major came in 2001, when he finished fourth at the Open at Southern Hills.
Other than at the 2005 Open at Pinehurst, where his tie for sixth earned him a spot at Winged Foot, Mediate has spent much of the past two years watching his game slip away. As he missed cuts and gritted through the pain, Mediate said he started to believe that his body might not allow him to continue playing for a living.
At tournaments, he would not make eye contact with the gallery. He walked with his head down.
"When you're one of the best at what you do, and it's gone, there is a panic there," Mediate said. "I was losing my mind. I stopped talking to people. I hated talking about my back. I had always made a living by hitting a ball from Point A to Point B. I couldn't do it."
Mediate started to mull his options. He had recently started playing online poker.
"I thought if I couldn't play golf anymore, I could play on the poker tour," Mediate said. "It was a bad situation."
With the touch of a few computer keys, Mediate had an account. He was putting money in and watching it dwindle. Mediate estimated that his losses were in the thousands.
"I wouldn't say I squandered it, I just lost some stuff I shouldn't have," Mediate said. "When you're down, you start reaching for stuff that isn't there."
Last month, John Daly wrote in an autobiography that he had lost $50 million to $60 million while gambling.
"John has had his troubles, but we're talking a couple thousand at a time, versus millions of dollars," Mediate said. "But when the money is going out and it's not coming in, that's bad. My parents didn't even know what was going on."
Mediate's wife, Linda, confronted him. She said he was beginning to turn inward.
"That's a typical male thing — they shut down because they don't want to appear weak," she said. "I'm a person that wants to talk. That was not a good time."
Mediate said, "My wife pulled me out of that nicely, like good wives do."
The Mediates, who live in Naples, Fla., struck a compromise: Mediate still plays poker, but he keeps a consistent level of money instead of constantly feeding an account.
Mediate competed in the 2005 World Series of Poker, finishing in the top 10 percent out of nearly 6,000 competitors.
When Mediate befriended the poker player Greg Raymer, they sat down with Linda. Raymer told her that Mediate was a good player.
Linda acknowledged that she still had problems with the glamorization of poker.
"You need to have restraint, and they don't write about the dangers, and it irks me," Linda said.
Of her husband's continued play, she added: "When he had to stop, he put limits on. He's one of the most disciplined people I know."
Mediate said what he needed most was the return of his golf game. He again turned to physical therapy in an attempt to save his career (he has not had a victory since 2002).
He was healthy entering the Masters in April and was one shot out of the lead through the first round.
Mediate's name remained on the leader board Sunday until a spate of strange luck. His approach shot on No. 9 smacked the pin and rolled off the green. He saved par, but his back was throbbing.
"I was thinking, 'How can I get past No. 12 and get this to the house?' " Mediate said.
He couldn't. Mediate dumped three balls into Rae's Creek on the 155-yard par-3 12th hole, made a 10 and finished tied for 36th, 13 shots behind the winner, Mickelson.
Back in Greensburg, friends and family monitored the fall.
"I cried like a baby watching that," said Brian Julian, 43, one of Mediate's friends from Hempfield Area High School. "People don't understand the work he has put in just to stand up. It was like, 'Here we go again.' "
Instead of despair, Mediate found a new motivation.
"Believe it or not, Augusta National saved me," he said. "It showed me what was wrong with my body. It saved the rest of my career. I know I can still play."
Mediate and a trainer started working to develop more strength in his hips to alleviate some of the pressure on his back. When he arrived in Greensburg for Memorial Day weekend, he alternated between long practice sessions at Totteridge Golf Club, where he is a member, and long chats with his old neighborhood friends.
He signed autographs for charity and took $100 off his friends in a round of golf at Totteridge.
With the Masters behind him, Mediate said he could not wait for Winged Foot, and Linda echoed that sentiment.
"His track record is that he'll be fine," Linda said of his rises and falls. "I'm always a firm believer that when it's your time, it's your time. Rocco has always loved the U.S. Open. Maybe he was supposed to win that first, and then the Masters."
[Before Mediate went to Winged Foot, he drove from Greensburg to Columbus, Ohio, where he ultimately pulled out of the Memorial, two weeks before the United States Open, because of more back problems. He also withdrew from the Barclays Classic on Friday for the same reason.]
While Mediate was on the road — traveling with his caddie, Brandon Antus, and Julian — he eased his silver Mercedes off Interstate 70 in Bentleyville, Pa., and pulled into a McDonald's. A customer almost immediately recognized him.
"You're the golfer," the man said. "I've seen you on TV. What's your name?"
"Rocco," Mediate said.
When the man said, "Rocco Media," Mediate did not bother correcting him.
Mediate pulled out a Sharpie, signed an autograph for the man and signed a half-dozen more for the workers behind the counter. They approached Mediate one at a time with a short stack of McDonald's receipts.
source : NY Times
