By Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

Tiger Woods  and Rocco Mediate have just teed off at the start of their 18-hole playoff to determine the 2008 U.S. Open golf championship. Fog hangs over Torrey Pines Golf Course and for an extra day,  fans around the world are being treated not only to Tiger on the prowl but views of the surf and sandstone cliffs of San Diego’s most dramatic stretch of coastline.

Soon the sponsor tents and grandstands will come down, and the satellite trucks will depart La Jolla. Tiger will still be Tiger and the 45-year-old, 158th-ranked Rocco, I fear, may end up dealing with a panoply of wouldas, couldas, and shouldas (he just fell behind by a stroke). The pros will leave as Torrey Pines, perhaps the finest public course in the country, reopens to the duffers and dreamers, and all of their slices into the pines and yips on the greens.

(Rocco is down by two.)

South of the course, a different sport will take off at Torrey Pines once the tournament finally departs. As celebrated as this stretch of coast is for its golf, it’s also home to a landmark within the aviation community: Torrey Pines Gliderport.

(Rocco is down by three.)

The gliderport had to shut down for the duration of the tournament but that’s just a blip in a history that dates back to 1928. Charles Lindbergh flew a sailplane here in 1930 and the gliderport is even on the National Register of Historic Places.

(Rocco’s back within two.)

At the gliderport, you can soar like an eagle or stay on terra firma and still have a terrific time. Tandem flights with experienced pilots and instructors are available in both hangliders and paragliders and will give you the kind of blimp’s-eye views that have been available to golf viewers. Me, I was plenty happy just being a law (of gravity) abiding citizen and hanging out at the gliderport’s Deli By The Sea.

(Rocco is only down by a stroke: can an underdog chase down a tiger?)

But it’s tempting to run off that cliff and into the truly wild blue yonder. Imagine flying without security lines and $15 baggage charges, with no battles for armrests with heavy elbowed dudes complete with sinus infections. The gliderport is all about rediscovering the miracle of flight. And miracles can happen. At least Rocco hopes so.

(IT’S ALL EVEN THROUGH 14!!)

Postscript:

Rocco gave it a go but after taking the lead and surviving into a sudden death playoff, he ultimately fell. Heroically. And now a poetic tribute.

Oh, somewhere on a fairway’s green, a drive is sailing right,
A foursome’s playing 18, and talk of Rocco’s fight,
And somewhere putts are falling, while someone’s in the sand,
But there is no way to Mediate that Tiger’s still the man.