Johnny Miller called this prank the ‘biggest comeback’ he’s ever seen

A lot will roll Rocco Mediatehis shoulders, including one of Johnny MillerThe most notoriously vague comments.

At the 2008 US Open, where Mediate famously battled through 91 holes with an injured Tiger Woods, Miller found himself in hot water (imagine that!) for some candid comments about Mediate on the air.

During the fourth round, Miller, then NBC’s lead analystsaid Mediate “looks like the guy who cleans Tiger’s pool,” later adding, “Guys named ‘Rocco’ don’t get trophies, do they?”

The comment was seen as insensitive by some Italian-American groups, one of which sent a letter to then-NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol saying Miller’s comment “reinforces a demeaning and harmful stereotype of an entire ethnic group.”

How did Mediate, who was a guest on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar, take it? He didn’t seem to mind.

Mediate told co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz that when Miller called him to apologize the same day as the 19-hole playoff with Woods, Mediate wasn’t concerned.

“He said, ‘Let me tell you what I said,'” Mediate recalled. And I went, ‘Yeah, right?’ I said, ‘I’m fine with that.'”

He goes, ‘Yeah, but they’re screaming.’

“I said, ‘I’ll take care of it.'”

Later that year, Mediate was scheduled to be honored as the Italian-American Athlete of the Year in New York City, but he gave organizers an ultimatum if they continued to seek punishment for Miller.

“I said, ‘If you guys do one thing, I’m not coming — not that they’d care — but I’m not coming to that thing,'” Mediate told Knost and Stoltz. “It is nothing against the Italians. Okay, that’s what they’re thinking, right? I said, it is not against us. Johnny is just Johnny. I’m okay with it.”

But Mediate still wanted to have the last laugh.

Later that year, Miller invited Mediate to his pro-scratching event in Utah and introduced him at a pre-tournament gala. Before the gala, Mediate asked someone to go to the hardware store and get him PVC pipe, a pool net and a cleaning net, then made sure Miller presented the latter.

“I turn around and pull my pants up, put on my khakis, pull them up to my knees, take off my shoes and socks, take off my shirt, put on my blouse, wrap the black PVC pipe around my body, take the net out,” Mediate said.

As he walked out, the room erupted in laughter, including Miller.

“Johnny comes back and he’s like, ‘Oh my God,'” Mediate said. “And I went to the microphone and I said, ‘You want to tell him, do you want me?’

“And he goes, that was the biggest comeback he’s ever seen.”

For more from Mediate, including what he learned from Arnold Palmer and stories from his US Open duel with Woods, listen to the full podcast here or see below.