Mediate headed to broadcast booth

ESPN, which will air all four round of the British Open for the first time this year, is promising to shake up the normally lackluster telecast with the addition of 18 cameras and new, though unspecified technology. The cable giant also will add at least one new voice at St. Andrews: Rocco Mediate.

Mediate will serve as an on-course announcer at the Open, and also will do “SportsCenter” spots with anchors Mike Tirico and Scott Van Pelt.

But Mediate, who has made just three cuts in 15 starts this year, insists he’s not looking to parachute into a full-time TV job. The Open, in fact, comes in the midst of a busy playing schedule. Mediate is playing the two weeks leading up to the Open, and after leaving Scotland he’ll head straight to Tour events in Canada and West Virginia.

“I still want to play, I’m still good enough to play,” he said. “I haven’t shown that of late, but I know I still am.”

This will be Mediate’s second stab at broadcasting. He worked three events for Golf Channel in 2007, and says he learned a lot during that short time.

“One thing Kenny Venturi definitely taught me is never talk about yourself,” Mediate said. “When I was with the Golf Channel, I never said ‘I’ unless I was asked what I would do, becasue no one cares about what I would do, they only care about what they’re looking at on television.”

Mediate, who joined the PGA Tour full-time in 1986, has played in nine Opens, making six cuts. His best finishes were a T-18 in 1996 and a T-19 in 2008, the year he memorably lost to Tiger Woods in an 18-hole playoff at the U.S. Open. Mediate said he is especially fond of St. Andrews, where he finished T-52 in 2000, though he recalls not knowing what to make of The Old Course when he first saw it.

“I remember the first thing I thought was, ‘What’s going on here?’ You just couldn’t tell where anything was,” he recalled. “It was just so different. When we started to play, it became evident what it was all about. It was just really neat, totally different than anything I’ve ever seen. Even the other Open courses aren’t the same. Just bunkers all over the place.”

He said he doesn’t anticipate he’ll have any problem speaking critically of his Tour counterparts if they play poorly at the Open. The voluble pro’s biggest concern is simply getting enough airtime.

“As much as I like to talk, most of the time you only have 3 or 4 or 5 seconds,” Mediate said. “I can’t even say my name in 5 seconds.”