After winning the Farmers Insurance Open Justin Rose spoke of his aspirations of completing the career grand slam. Rose is certainly ageing like a fine wine as they say but his golf over the last two years has been of a vintage that shows his claim might not be that outlandish.
In another world Rose would only need a PGA Championship to complete the set having been beaten in two playoffs at the Masters and with two runner-up finishes at The Open. As it is, he has top-3 finishes in all four majors including a 2013 US Open win. But he has forged a career that deserves more.
Now at world number three and with seven top-10 finishes at the Masters, Rose will surely drive down Magnolia Lane in two months as one of the favourites for the green jacket and he is already tinkering his equipment set up for that occasion with a mini driver on the agenda.
“Yeah, so to build my form and build my momentum and make sure I’m fit and ready and firing for sure, absolutely. That’s kind of what, yeah — you know, each week consumes you for sure. I think it’s not like every week’s a practice week for Augusta. I don’t think that’s a healthy mindset anyway because it builds Augusta too big in your head. When the moment comes, it’s probably not good for you. But you want to go in there with a healthy kind of balance of having it in the crosshairs, but making sure that all the other parts of your game have been honored through playing as hard as you can every week. Those good habits.
“I feel like it does offer me a huge opportunity. I love the golf course. I’ve got great strategy. I think the way I’m driving the ball this year so far and the end of last year kind of gives me a little bit more opportunity there than it maybe has done in the past as well.
“I feel like I’ll look to reimplement maybe the mini driver going into Augusta as well. I feel like I got caught in between driver and 3-wood quite a lot down the stretch on a few occasions. I feel like the mini driver could be a great opportunity off the tee that week. Yeah, definitely thinking about a few things as it relates to Augusta, but at the end of the day, yeah, you’ve still got to stand up, execute and play well. Doesn’t matter how well you know a golf course, you’ve just got to go and be in a good frame of mind and execute on the week.”
It would be remiss to say that the Englishman is defying his age but looking back on his early career he felt his progression was linear. Breaking through on the PGA Tour in 2010, winning a playoff event in 2011, a World Golf Championship in 2012 that winning the US Open in 2013 was just the logical next step on the journey before he became world number one in 2018.
After some lean years on tour which had him hotly tipped to join LIV Golf in 2022, Rose has become the man for the big occasion after playing a starring role in the 2023 and 2025 Ryder Cups for Europe as well as contending in majors and winning big PGA Tour events.
“Call it from maybe from Rome 2023, Ryder Cup onwards I feel like I’ve played well in the big moments on the important days in the important occasions in golf, whether that be Ryder Cups, whether that be Augustas, whether that be The Open Championship.
“I kind of picked my moments really well and I think that that’s kind of what made me realize why I’m playing the game. I’m playing obviously to win, but kind of advance my career just for my own point of view in terms of putting myself in positions that are fun to be in. Enjoying the moments that make the hard work worth it. Creating those memories for the future, you know what I mean, and I think I’ve been doing a good job of doing that.”
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