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Rocco Mediate enjoyed a pretty good career on the PGA Tour, finishing with six total wins and a runner-up finish at the 2008 U.S. Open; losing in heartbreaking fashion during a playoff round to Tiger Woods. Now a member of the Champions Tour, it wasn’t all roses for the the 56-year-old, though, who opened up to Golf Channel’s Vince Cellini about his drinking problem, admitting that it was a “daily ritual” for him, and said that he often boozed during PGA Tour events.
Describing himself as a “habitual alcoholic,” Rocco Mediate said that drinking helped cope with physical and mental pain on the course, and said that he finally kicked the bad habit in October of 2017 with the help of his wife.
Per Golf Digest:
“Absolutely I have (played while drinking). Because it was just normal for me. It was just a daily ritual, let’s say,” Mediate said. “You can put it in a lot of places. A lot of places. Was it every time? No. But most of the time when the pain came in, it wasn’t not going to happen.”
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“I couldn’t tell you since last October, years before that, a day I went without having a drink,” Mediate said. “I knew at the time that eventually it was going to get me.”
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“I actually didn’t know what I was going to feel. I was hoping that I didn’t need to have it,” he said. “I didn’t need alcohol, I just wanted it. I enjoyed it. Simple as that. If I woke up and I was like, ‘Oh God,’ then we have some serious problems called rehab. Didn’t want to have to do that. Had a small headache for about four hours, and that was the end. Done.”
Best-known for that aforementioned 2008 U.S. Open loss to Tiger Woods, Rocco Mediate said that found himself relating to the 14-time Major champ following Woods’ 2017 DUI arrest, which included a combination of prescription medications. Here’s what Mediate had to tell Cellini about his thoughts back then.
“When that happened, I went, ‘Mm-hmm, yeah. I just didn’t get caught,'” Mediate said. “But when it comes to that type of pain, you’ll basically do whatever it takes to be able to go, ‘Oh, that feels better.'”
While Rocco Mediate did win the 2016 Senior PGA Championship, it wasn’t until a year later that he was able to overcome his alcohol addiction, but it’s awesome that he beat the bad habit that plagued him for so long.