Justin Rose’s phone was filled with text messages Sunday after The Masters.
While he was pleased to see the “outpouring from people with a lot of positive comments,” he nevertheless wishes their tone was more congratulatory. Losing a major in a playoff will do that.
But it was his incredible comeback to force the playoff with eventual champion Rory McIlroy — he started the day seven strokes back of the leader — that makes him keep competing, even the week following his somewhat disheartening defeat.
That’s why Rose, who turns 45 on July 30, is at this week’s RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C.: For those memories that will last a lifetime.
Among the recent moments added to Rose’s personal highlight reel: Burying the match-tying putt during Friday’s Four-Ball competition at the 2023 Ryder Cup — “with all the team around me” — and seeing the patrons erupt when he flushed his long birdie putt to close out his final-round 66 Sunday at Augusta.
“Yeah, I want it to be accompanied with the requisite trophy as well; don’t get me wrong,” Rose said. “But the reason I’m playing is to sort of feel those moments that really matter in your career and in your life.
“I believe the point is the reason I’m working hard enough to do it is because I still have that belief that it’s possible. I think that that’s why these weeks are important for me still is that it’s just reaffirming that it’s still possible.”
Rose has won 11 tournaments in his PGA career with his last coming at the 2023 Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which was his first win in four years.
The win that allowed him to be more comfortable mentally was the 2013 U.S. Open. He also has barely missed winning multiple other majors. He tied for second at the British Open in 2018 and 2024. And, as Sunday’s CBS broadcast mentioned several times, Rose had been in the Masters’ previous playoff — when Sergio Garcia beat him on the first playoff hole in 2017.
“You can use this to free yourself up and hopefully be the catalyst to winning more and winning them more easily once that monkey is off the back,” Rose said to himself after winning the U.S. Open. “Yeah, even in my situation now, I take that (Masters) loss pretty badly. (Tuesday) was tough. But had I not won a major, it would have been even more brutal, no doubt about it.
“But listen, I was a stone’s throw away from winning the Open, winning the Masters. I would have been going for a Grand Slam at the PGA. It’s like, it can be that close. I’ve got to believe that. I’m close to kind of some seriously good stuff, yeah.”
So, at 43, Rose will be back on the course in South Carolina this weekend vying for another title. Then there will be time for a couple of weeks off back in his native England.
For now, though, Rose feels he’s in a great place, even having come up just short in Augusta.
“I’m happy to be here, to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m very motivated just generally this year, and I would say that’s been the difference this year; I’m creating these better opportunities, these better weeks, because I feel like I’m doing the work away from golf tournaments, as well. There’s just a bit more energy and motivation and belief in what I’m doing and what I’m trying to achieve.”
–Field Level Media
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