The name Rocco Mediate never really sounded like a golfer. It was more like a procedure performed by a round table of diplomats as they attempted to make headway in some political stalemate.

Of course, Mediate did make a name for himself on the course. Six PGA Tour wins illuminated a sturdy career in the upper echelons while his move into the ranks of sprightly veterans on the over-50s circuit has been rewarded with a further three titles on the Champions Tour. That triumphant trinity included last year’s Senior PGA Championship, where he beat Colin Montgomerie to the bounty by three shots.

It was a major-winning moment but not a career-defining one. Mediate, after all, will always be remembered as the man who lost out to Tiger Woods in the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines after a titanic 18-hole play-off. It would be Woods’ 14th and final major win and one achieved with a limb that was crumbling like the Acropolis. The jiggered anterior cruciate ligament in his knee and double stress fracture to his left tibia became almost celebrity ailments as the Tiger hirpled and winced to an astonishing triumph on one leg which had many believing that he possessed superman-like powers.

In the years that have passed, of course, it has been proved that Woods is human after all. At 41, the stresses and strains of a lifetime spent pushing the golfing boundaries continues to cast a shroud of uncertainty over his career as a series of comebacks are aborted like the lift-off of a malfunctioning shuttle at Cape Canaveral. At a lively 54, meanwhile, Mediate is still heavily involved in the competitive cut-and-thrust.

In a week which saw Woods unveil a new book to mark the 20th anniversary of his magical maiden Masters win in 1997, the biggest chapter of Mediate’s sporting life continues to be pored over. “Every day, honestly every day,” said Mediate when asked how often that 2008 US Open crops up in conversation. “Someone asks me a question every day and it's funny they come up and act like ‘are you okay?’ Of course it's okay. It was the coolest thing ever. I just didn't get the trophy.”

Woods had never lost a major championship when leading going into the final round and he led by one with 18 to play at Torrey Pines. Mediate was just two back but hauled himself to the top with a robust round which forced Woods to hole a birdie putt on the last to set up an 18-hole play-off on the Monday. Woods was 32 and the world No 1. Mediate was 45 and ranked 156th. “I was ready to play,” he reflected. “I remember saying to one of my friends that ‘I just want one more shot at him before I'm done’. And I got it. I got the shot in our national Open. It was the most fun I ever had playing. And I knew when I woke up on Monday morning that I was going to win. I knew it. I felt it. But great players like him find a way somehow. They just do things you're not supposed to do. He did it all the time.”

Winning with a shattered leg was certainly not something you’re supposed to do but Woods did it. “I think he's the greatest ever, in my opinion,” said Mediate. “His (Woods’) father said something years and years and years ago that ‘my son will do things on a golf course that no one else can do, and he'll do it every day’. And you think, what? Well, he was right. He was a hundred per cent correct. This guy did stuff that you just can't do. But all the great ones do. Jack (Nicklaus) back in the old days, they all did things that you're not supposed to do all the time. That's why they are the greatest ever. We do things we're not supposed to do occasionally in the moment.”

Mediate will always have the memories of that major moment. As questions remain over Woods’ future, meanwhile, it could be a case of thanks for the memories, Tiger.