What's the Fuss?

As far as sports lore goes, golf wants Tiger Woods to win today’s U.S. Open playoff against Rocco Mediate.

Except this man wants Mediate to win. The more you listen to him, who wouldn’t?

“I’m nuts,” Mediate said. “Come on, seriously. I’ve always been that way. It’s nervous energy anyway. I can’t be quiet, that’s for sure. But I obviously won’t bother anybody. I don’t do that, either. I’ll talk to people outside before I — but Tiger will talk a bit, I’m sure. He has no choice. It will sure be a lot of fun.”

Mediate knows he talks a lot. Just watch him. After every swing, he’s looking around for someone to talk to. He knows how important today is, but he’s staying humble, not taking anything too seriously. After Saturday’s round, Mediate said if he could defeat Woods, he might just quit. He wasn’t serious but that’s the way Mediate is. He doesn’t take his day job for granted and he realizes how fortunate he is to play with the world’s No. 1 player, especially since he’s ranked No. 158.

“That will change this week,” Mediate said of his ranking. “It won’t get to second, but it won’t be 158th.

“To go up against the best player in the world and have a chance to beat him, there’s nothing else you can ask for, period. Of course I want to win. Of course I do. I wanted to win (Sunday) and I thought I had a pretty good shot at it and I made him do something today and he did it, which is amazing. He does it all the time.”

Woods is working toward his 14th golf major, which, if he wins today, would be four shy of tying Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 major wins.

A win by Woods would have all the storylines of a storybook ending: he came back from knee surgery, wincing through pain on nearly every shot gaining the gallery’s condolences and hitting a tournament-tying, playoff-forcing 12-foot putt on the very last shot of the 72-hole regulation tournament.

Phew. Cinderella has nothing on this one.

Except for Mediate.

While most of the attention has been on Woods throughout the tournament, especially on Thursday (when Woods was paired with Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott) and Sunday, Mediate has been reveling in every moment at Torrey Pines, located in La Jolla, Calif.

“I bet you didn’t think I’d be here today, did you?” Mediate asked to start his post-round press conference Sunday night. “I believe you, I know you didn’t think I’d be here. You didn’t, really? That hurt. Go ahead, sorry.”

Mediate wasn’t lying. He really didn’t think he was going to be there.

Three weeks ago, the 45-year-old from Naples wasn’t planning on playing five rounds in San Diego. He wasn’t even planning on teeing of Thursday. Mediate had to play his way into the U.S. Open through a sectional qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, along with Ben Crane, Davis Love III, Jesper Parnevik, Chad Campbell and Justin Hicks.

But Mediate’s journey to the second Monday of the U.S. Open didn’t just go through Ohio. Plagued by back pain throughout his career, the Pennsylvania native nearly won the tournament of his lifetime, the 2006 Masters. Leading on the final day, Mediate shot a 10 on the Par 3 No. 12 and finished tied for 36th. Soon after he became a broadcaster for the Golf Channel.

“I can’t explain it,” Mediate said. “It was, after the announcing, I was pretty in bad shape. And I met a woman who saved me. You’ve heard this I’m sure before. Made me able to play again and found the problems and all of a sudden I’ve had one setback since then. And it was a disk anyway, no one would have prevented that. And that’s what made me able to keep going.

“This is a big one for me. This is along one for me, so yeah, a lot of things have happened. Talking about was I ever going to play again, or do this or have a chance to win one of these, get back to Augusta National, which I still have some things to settle there and I’ve done that, too, which is cool. Yeah, I can get back in there. So, all that stuff, I can’t really believe I’m sitting here. I really can’t.”

Woods will win his tournaments. Reaching 18 majors is inevitable, save a catastrophic event. Mediate doesn’t know what the pressure of today would be like, but to him, it doesn’t matter. While Tiger’s knee is getting stronger, Rocco is running on fumes.

“I have nothing left right now,” he said Sunday night. “I’m toast. It was the most amazing day of golf I’ve ever experienced. (Today) is going to be pretty amazing, too, but (Sunday) was absolutely remarkable. I’ve never been there like that before. And I just found out what it’s all about. It doesn’t matter how you get it in, you’ve just got to get in and trust what you’ve worked on all your life. The putting. There’s no technical anything going on, it’s all make the ball go where you want it to go. It’s amazing.

“The thing that’s most amazing is the man I’m going to play has won 13 of these. It’s amazing how much it takes. I gave all of what I had today and I can’t complain.”