Justin Rose tasted victory again on the PGA Tour this Sunday in Memphis, winning in an exciting playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first tournament of the season-ending playoffs. At 45 years old, and after six seasons without qualifying for the Tour Championship at East Lake, the Englishman adds a win that is worth much more than the trophy. It puts him back in the final fight for the FedExCup and confirms that, despite the passage of time, he is still capable of beating the best. “It’s really gratifying to know that the hard work is not in vain. I felt I could compete with the best in the world and today I proved I can beat them,” he said with a mix of pride and relief.
Beyond the immediate value —his 12th title on the PGA Tour and a guaranteed ticket to East Lake—, this victory has a deeper meaning for Rose. Age is just a number, as the saying goes, and for the Englishman, it is true. This Sunday he became the oldest European to win on the American circuit. It is yet another confirmation that he can still write important chapters in his career: “There are very few players who are competitive between 45 and 50. Before, that age range was the waiting room for the Champions Tour. But I believe I still have a golden summer ahead in my career. Moments like this confirm it. I may not be world number one again, like in 2018, but I don’t need to be if I can find my best game at key moments.” No waiting room, no intention of moving on to play with the seniors, Justin Rose still has plenty of fight left. It was assumed that Marco Simone would be his last Ryder Cup and he will be at Bethpage as one of the team’s pillars.
It must be said that the week did not start well for the 2013 US Open champion. On Monday night he began to feel ill, and on Wednesday he made the decision to withdraw from the pro-am to try to recover energy: “On Tuesday I tried to practice a bit, but when I walked a few holes I felt it was best to go to the car and recover. In Philadelphia this year I pushed in a similar situation and ended up withdrawing on Saturday, so I learned the lesson. I needed to be fresh for Thursday,” he explained. The rest paid off and he opened the tournament with a 64 that laid the foundation for everything that was to come.
His final round, however, was not a walk in the park. He started one stroke off the lead, with Tommy Fleetwood —one of his best friends on the circuit— and Scottie Scheffler as direct rivals, along with a large group lurking. The start was slow, with little movement on the first nine holes, but everything changed on the 14th. “At that moment I knew I had to give it my all, but without losing my cool. I told myself: ‘It’s time to be brave’. With a 6-iron I held the shot against the flag, a pretty risky shot, and making that putt gave me the boost I needed,” he recalled. From there, he strung together birdies on the 15th and 16th, and on the 17th he sank another key putt that put him at the top.
In that stretch, Rose applied one of his favourite philosophies, which he calls the “theory of big numbers”. “If the putts aren’t dropping, you have to stick to the same routine and trust that, statistically, sooner or later they will fall. Today I had to wait quite a while, but they started dropping just when I needed them most.” Experience is an asset, Justin has many battles under his belt and the patience to know that if you do things right, the results are likely to come.
The 18th offered him a good chance to close the tournament without needing a playoff, but his putt didn’t want to drop. Spaun, with a birdie on the 17th, forced the playoff. The decisive hole was played three times. Rose, who had never hit a driver there before, felt comfortable with that choice all week: “The way the wind was, it allowed me to cover the left side and leave myself a comfortable wedge. That position was a green light to go for birdie.” On the third replay, with the flag in a spot he knew well, he executed a left-to-right breaking putt that sealed the victory.
Far from the over-the-top celebrations like the legendary one on the 18th hole on the first day of the 2023 Ryder, Rose experienced the triumph with unusual serenity. “It was quite a stoic victory. I stayed very calm, one foot in front of the other, blocking everything that was happening around. I suppose that’s why, at the moment, I didn’t have that big adrenaline rush. But when I watch the replay, I’ll realise how exciting it was.”
