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Costantino Rocca (born 4 December 1956) is an Italian golfer. He was long known as the most successful male that Italy has produced, until the 2018 success of Francesco Molinari, who credited Rocca as an inspiration to him following his Open victory. After a long career on the European Tour, Constantino is now playing on the European Seniors Tour. He has five European Tour wins and is best known for his second-place finish in the 1995 Open Championship, and his hole in one in 1995 Ryder Cup.
Rocca is best known for his performance at the 1995 Open Championship. He holed a 60-foot (18-metre) putt on the 18th at St Andrews to make birdie and force a four-hole playoff with John Daly but Daly won the playoff by four strokes. Rocca's second-highest finish in a major was a tie for fifth in the 1997 Masters Tournament; he was in the final pairing on Sunday, having begun the final round in second place, nine shots behind 21-year-old Tiger Woods, and he finished fifteen behind Woods.
Rocca was the first Italian to play for Europe in the Ryder Cup, and remained the only Italian to do so until 2010, when Francesco Molinari qualified for the Ryder Cup held in Celtic Manor and Edoardo Molinari was a captain's pick. He appeared in 1993, 1995 and 1997, and had a 6–5–0 win–loss–half record, including 1 win and 2 losses in singles matches. That one singles win came in a crucial match against Tiger Woods in the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama, which Rocca won 4 & 2 to help Europe claim the cup. The victory against Woods was one of Woods' first losses in singles play. His 53% winning record in the Cup is one of the best in European team history. During the 1995 Ryder Cup, Rocca made a hole-in-one on Oak Hill's sixth hole, only the third ace in Ryder Cup history. In 1999, Rocca almost qualified for the Ryder Cup again after he won the West of Ireland Golf Classic.
The 2001 European Tour season was the last in which Rocca finished inside the top hundred on the Order of Merit, though the remained exempt through 2006 due to his 1996 Volvo PGA Championship win. He made his European Seniors Tour debut at the 2007 Sharp Italian Seniors Open, and won his first senior tournament two weeks later at the Irish Seniors Open. He ended 2008 with a record seven top finishes and ranked ninth in the Order of Merit. His best placing was tied third in the Azores Senior Open.
In 2008, Rocca opened his own golf academy, the Costantino Rocca Golf Academy, at Golf Club Gerre Losone in Switzerland.
Rocca played his last European Tour event in 2015 at the Italian Open, an event he played in 33 times but never won.
He is friends with golfing great Gary Player and plays in his Gary Player Invitational charity event to help raise money for underprivileged children around the world.
| Flagship events (1) |
| Other European Tour (4) |
| 1 | 4 Apr 1993 | Open de Lyon | −21 (67-71-66-63=267) | 6 strokes | Joakim Haeggman, Gabriel Hjertstedt, Barry Lane, Paul McGinley |
| 2 | 27 Jun 1993 | Peugeot Open de France | −11 (66-66-71-70=273) | Playoff | Paul McGinley |
| 3 | 27 May 1996 | Volvo PGA Championship | −14 (69-67-69-69=274) | 2 strokes | Nick Faldo, Paul Lawrie |
| 4 | 7 Sep 1997 | Canon European Masters | −13 (71-69-70-65=275) | 1 stroke | Scott Henderson, Robert Karlsson |
| 5 | 15 Aug 1999 | West of Ireland Golf Classic1 | −12 (70-68-68-70=276) | 2 strokes | Pádraig Harrington |
European Tour playoff record (1–1)
| 1 | 1993 | Peugeot Open de France | Paul McGinley | Won with bogey on first extra hole |
| 2 | 1995 | The Open Championship | John Daly | Lost four-hole aggregate playoff; Daly: −1 (4-3-4-4=15), Rocca: +3 (5-4-7-3=19) |
| 1 | 22 Apr 1989 | Open Index | −13 (275) | 3 strokes | Neal Briggs |
| 2 | 15 Aug 1999 | West of Ireland Golf Classic1 | −12 (70-68-68-70=276) | 2 strokes | Pádraig Harrington |
| Tour Championships (1) |
| Other European Seniors Tour (1) |
| 1 | 3 Jun 2007 | AIB Irish Seniors Open | −5 (69-71-71=211) | 2 strokes | Juan Quirós, Kevin Spurgeon |
| 2 | 10 Nov 2007 | The Kingdom of Bahrain Trophy Seniors Tour Championship | −10 (70-70-66=206) | 1 stroke | Nick Job |
European Seniors Tour playoff record (0–1)
| 1 | 2007 | European Senior Masters | Carl Mason | Lost to birdie on first extra hole |
| 1 | 1995 | The Open Championship | John Daly | Lost four-hole aggregate playoff; Daly: −1 (4-3-4-4=15), Rocca: +3 (5-4-7-3=19) |
PGA of Japan Tour playoff record (0–1)
| 1 | 1996 | Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters | Jeff Sluman, Lee Westwood | Westwood won with par on fourth extra hole Sluman eliminated by birdie on first hole |
| Masters Tournament | T41 | CUT | T5 | CUT | |||||
| U.S. Open | CUT | T67 | CUT | ||||||
| The Open Championship | T44 | T55 | CUT | CUT | 2 | T64 | CUT | T9 | T18 |
| PGA Championship | CUT | T17 | T52 | T71 | CUT |
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
| 2 |
| 1 |
| 6 |
| 3 |
| The Players Championship | CUT | T43 | CUT |
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