PSR Showdown
Bigger Deal: Pens Run for the Cup, or Rocco vs. Tiger?
By Mike Dudurich
Tribune-Review

Rocco

C'mon.

Seriously.

Could it get any better than this?

The national championship of golf.

On one of the country's most spectacularly beautiful layouts.

Two nights of prime-time coverage for the first time ever.

Four rounds of exciting, high-pressure golf with the requisite no-names leading early, only to be replaced by the more accomplished players as the tournament moved along. Golf's most dominant player for the last 10 years facing the 158th-ranked player in the world.

AND MR. 158 GREW UP IN GREENSBURG.

From a true competition perspective, Rocco Mediate's gutsy performance-battling back from three shots down on the back nine of the playoff that eventually went to a sudden death hole and forcing Tiger Woods to birdie the 18th hole twice to stay in the game-is the stuff of which legends are made.

Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury and Marian Hossa? They were spectacular, but it says here that the two guys wearing red and black on Playoff Monday put on a better show at Torrey Pines than what the Penguins did earlier this spring.

That doesn't mean I wasn't glued to the terrific hockey the Penguins played. Having covered the Penguins for many years, including the two Cup seasons, hockey is one of my passions.

But watching the unfolding drama of a 45-year-old guy in his twilight years on the PGA Tour, taking the best player in the game to the mat, only to have him wriggle free twice, was something very special.

The buzz was not limited to western Pennsylvania, but was palpable around the world during the 2008 U.S. Open. Restaurants and bars did big business Monday during the playoff.

I had a friend who was traveling that day and he stopped at a restaurant, went in and, when he discovered it had no televisions, he abruptly left. He found a bar that did and watched how things unfolded there.

People who couldn't care less about golf were riveted by the aging local guy getting perhaps his one and only shot at the game's best player on its biggest stage.

With all due respect to the Penguins, Rocco's Wild Open Adventure shines brightest in 2008.