Age is just a number. Ageing like a fine wine. Life in the old dog yet… Justin Rose is making a mockery of the usual clichés and is enjoying a spell of golf that is of far greater substance than an Indian summer.
At 45 years young, Rose has risen to world number three, his highest ranking since 2019 after he clinched his thirteenth PGA Tour title at the Farmers Insurance Open at the weekend.
Rose has been in excellent form for 18 months as he puts it himself winning twice in that period but he also has three wins in the last four years which had helped him break back into the top-50 and star on two Ryder Cup teams. Now he is the best of the rest behind Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
Long tipped as the successor to Luke Donald to captain Europe at the Ryder Cup in Adare Manor next year, the Englishman is honestly far too good to be winding down in his career. While it is still very early days before the European team takes any sort of shape in the lead in to Limerick, you wouldn’t dare suggest that Europe would be without Rose in their three-in-a-row bid.
In fact, Rose’s comments after his victory on Sunday all but closed the door on that possibility in the near future surely? The former world number one isn’t satisfied with sitting just below Scheffler and McIlroy, he has intentions of returning to past glories.
Rose is the Tiger Woods of Louis Oosthuizen’s. A fantastic player and career that feels unfulfilled despite having tucked away a major title. But Rose hasn’t lifted a major since the 2013 US Open in Merion and while Oosthuizen relinquished his chances of adding to his 2010 Open by joining LIV, Rose has lofty ambitions.
His career certainly deserves another major championship. If he had been facing anybody else in that Masters playoff last year, the people would have been rooting for him. His defeat to McIlroy is his second playoff loss at Augusta after he was edged out by Sergio Garcia in 2017.
He also has two runner-up finishes at the Open Championship but desperately wants to end his major drought. In fact, he wants more than that. He wants the set.
“The Majors is where I have my attention, for sure. I’ve achieved a lot in the game, but I’ve achieved a lot of it just once,” admitted Rose. “So I’ll take multiple of anything that I’ve achieved for sure would be great. But if I look at my career, I’ve been really close to the Open, I’ve been really close to the Masters.
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