Not many five-time winners on the PGA Tour elect to step down and play in a Nationwide Tour event, but Rocco Mediate is doing that this week at the inaugural Mylan Classic, not far from his hometown of Greensburg.

Initially, Mediate was just going to conduct a clinic and be part of the pro-am at the Southpointe Golf Club as a favor to Rod Piatt, club president. Then, when he didn't qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour, he figured he might as well keep himself busy and play in the 72-hole event.

"I'm not playing [on the PGA Tour] for three more weeks, so what the heck," Mediate said. "Plus, it's home. If it was somewhere else, maybe I wouldn't."

Good decision.

Mediate is tied for third after two rounds at the Arthur Hills-designed course in Canonsburg, thanks to a second-round 69 Friday that began with a double bogey at No. 10, his first hole, and concluded with the last of four birdies at the final hole. That left him tied with four other players, including former 84 Lumber Classic winner Jason Gore, at 6-under 136, four shots behind leader Geoffrey Sisk.

What's more, it put Mediate in position to win a professional tour event for the first time since the 2002 Greater Greensboro Open, the last of his five PGA Tour victories.

Sisk, who is 10 under after 33 holes, was on the course when play was suspended because of darkness at 7:50 p.m. So was Washington, Pa., native Steve Wheatcroft, who just birdied No. 17 to get to 6 under when play was stopped. They will return at 7:45 a.m. today to complete the second round.

"I wouldn't care where it was," Mediate said about the possibility of winning the $108,000 first prize. "That's what you want. I enjoy that feeling."

Mediate, 47, is accustomed to winning bigger tournaments with bigger purses and beating the best players in the world in the process.

Of his five PGA Tour victories, three have come with Tiger Woods, the world's No. 1 player, in the field. And the smallest of his first-place checks was the first -- $252,000 for winning the 1991 Doral Ryder Open in a playoff against Curtis Strange, the reigning two-time U.S. Open champion.

But maybe Mediate's grandest moment was the tournament he didn't win -- losing an extraordinary 18-hole Monday playoff to Woods at the 2008 U.S. Open, an epic battle that thrilled the golfing world and thrust him into instant celebrity status.

Two years later, here he is, playing on the Nationwide Tour for the first time, having made only seven cuts in 21 PGA Tour events and dropping to No. 188 in the world rankings.

"There is a little more pressure," Mediate said. "You want to show people why you're still doing it. It looks so easy when you're watching on television. It doesn't look as hard as it is."

It is not easy to do what Mediate is doing, not when you're one of only 36 active players to win five or more PGA Tour events. It is not easy to play on a tour that serves as a feeder system to the PGA Tour when you are one of the most popular figures on the big-boy circuit.

"It is tough," said Arnold Palmer, honorary chairman of the Mylan Classic, who stopped by Southpointe to watch his grandson, Sam Saunders, play the second round. "But it's nice that a guy like Rock came out and is doing what he's doing. It gives him a chance to play, and it gives the tournament recognition to have a guy like Rock out here playing. It's a good feather in the cap."

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