It is a fair bet that Rocco Mediate will not have been studying Tiger Woods's records when he sat down to supper last night and contemplated how close he had come to winning the US Open, 22 years after joining the PGA Tour in the US.

He will have known without looking up the record books that Woods is a crusher of dreams. With four wins in his career, Mediate is an archetypal journeyman pro - good enough to keep his card each year but rarely one to get the pulses racing. Prior to last week, he had missed the halfway cut on eight occasions this season and had only two finishes inside the top 50 in 17 events.

Mediate's performance at Torrey Pines, where he finished on one under par, was a revelation. He had found a comfort zone on a truly difficult course and enjoyed every moment of it - milking the applause for all it was worth at a time when it looked likely that, at 45, he might become the oldest winner of the second major championship of the year.

However, instinct, if nothing else, will have told him that he was in for a torrid time in the 18-hole play-off today. In a period dating back to 1996, the world No 1 has played in 18 play-offs and has lost only three of them. The intimidation factor of going head to head with the greatest player the game has seen must be colossal.

The three players to have beaten Woods in a play-off were Billy Mayfair, at the 1998 Nissan Open, Nick Price, at the 1998 Nedbank Challenge in South Africa, and Padraig Harrington, at the 2006 Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Japan. It is hard to imagine Mediate joining them.