Defining Decisions: Justin Rose | A Ryder Cup Documentary

Returning for 2025, Defining Decisions, presented by Aon, takes a deep dive into the life and career of the 2023 Nicklaus Jacklin Award winner, Justin Rose.

From his early life in South Africa, winning the Silver Medal to US Open and Olympic glory, this documentary is a unique look at leadership, sportsmanship and performance under pressure in the heat of competition.

Learn more about Aon’s Partnership with the Ryder Cup here: https://www.rydercup.com/aon

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Every two years, 24 of the best players from Europe and the United States go head-to-head in match play competition. The European Team are the reigning champions after winning at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in 2023. Drama, tension, incredible golf, camaraderie and sportsmanship are served in equal measure, captivating an audience of millions around the world. It’s an event that transcends sport, yet remains true to the spirit of its founder, Samuel Ryder. The 2025 Ryder Cup is set to take place at Bethpage Black in New York.

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[Music] Not making the last one is always that kick out the backside that you need and you know lights a fire. Quite a stage here in 18. Rose and McIntyre. Remember they haven’t been up since the fourth hole today. I said to my caddy, “Come on. I don’t want to be the only piece of red on that board.” [Music] We might need to get those fans out of the fairway on 18. I think that’s going to be somewhat important. We’ve got a little bit of chaos going on, but nothing has been decided yet. That’s for sure. [Music] Well, if Europe can squeeze half a point out of this, it will match the biggest lead in history. Obviously, everybody’s following your four ball. You’re the last match on the course. And the last part of the day, all of your team are behind you. The stage was set. Justin Rose to tie the match. [Music] born in South Africa in 1980. I lived there for the first 5 years of my life. I think my parents could see that they weren’t really sure which way South Africa was going to go at that point and you know grandparents were British on both sides. So fortunate enough to have the opportunity to move to England and my parents could see that being a better future for both me and my sister. My dad came ahead of the family when we moved country and he settled in a in a town called Hook, which is kind of a ominous start for a golfer. You know, it’s not a great word, is it? Hook. But, um, I guess I learned to take the hook into a draw and, uh, and carry on. Obviously, as a 5-year-old, you don’t really know what’s ahead of you or what you’re into or what you like. But, I think, uh, by moving to the UK, my dad fortunately found the love of golf himself and then sort of saw me as his passport, I suppose, to to get out and play more golf. So he would take me with him to the golf course and my mom bought me a little plastic set of clubs and they could see that I had a a propensity just to to love hitting a ball. You know, I think any mother who can distract their toddler is like all in on whatever that activity is and which obviously I’ve now experienced later in life. So I can see why she was definitely an advocate as well for me playing golf. But by the time I was eight, I was playing competitive golf. I was really had a handicap. I was focusing on it. I was trying to improve. I was training and practicing to be better. So yeah, I think I was all in from from about the age of eight. But unfortunately around that time, the UK fell into a bit of a recession sort of late 80s, early ‘9s being from South Africa. My dad moved here with a job opportunity that then sort of went sideways. So tough time for the family from a financial point of view. But the upside of that was that he was able to to spend a lot of time with me in and around my my golf. So, uh, he definitely stewarded and coached me and taught me everything I knew. And he would always, you know, the art of bribery, too. He was pretty good at that. You know, he would always like dangle the carrot and create little goals for me to try to shoot towards and to try to achieve. And, you know, as you grow up as a kid, there’s always little mini challenges that come up like other sports or friendship groups or girls or whatever it might be. And there’s always those little questions of do I want to go to a golf course? Should I go to golf? I want to do other things. But I had this passion for the game and I had sort of this feeling of I’m actually really good at this. It’s almost like I had this uh I don’t want to say burden because that’s a terrible word, but this sort of um this feeling like I I sort of owed it to myself to sort of explore this potential talent that I had. 14year-old Justin Rose wins the Hampshire Hog with a course record 65. Boy wonder Justin Justin Rose wins the regional and heads to Scots Craig. As teenager Justin Rose climbs the ranks of England’s national team. Many are calling him the next Tiger Woods. After becoming the youngest Walker Cup player ever, talented phenom Justin Rose qualifies for the 127th Open Championship at Royal Burkale. Will he go pro afterwards? We’ll have to wait and see. What unfolded that week um was pretty magical to be honest with you. The second round, I shot an amazing 66, which was the lowest score of the day, by two shots, I think. So, to clip a major championship field by two shots as a 17-year-old was obviously amazing. And I think the key to the rest of the week was I was able to understand and realize that I was playing with house money in the sense that no one expected me to really go on and win or to do well. So, I played with a sense of freedom that I’m still trying to recreate to this day. But as the week went on, I kind of felt something inside of me going, I’m going to win this. I’m going to win this. You know, I had this sort of sense that it doesn’t actually matter where the ball goes, I’m going to get it up and down. So that freedom that I was able to play with really helped me play well into the weekend and climb the leaderboard. And then the finish was a bit audacious. um [Applause] which I think some people still say is the loudest roar they’ve ever heard in golf. And I’ve probably met everybody in the stands now because I’m sure I’ve met 40,000 people that have said I was there at Burke Dale. So after the Open Championship, I decided to turn pro. But there were some dark times after that decision. It’s a tough start for the British Open star turn professional who’s still waiting to find the weekend. And young Justin Rose misses the cut yet again. Justin Rose is still stuck on the nursery slopes awaiting his first paycheck as a rookie professional. And that makes it 21 missed cuts in a row. Talk about a year of disappointment. The question is, is Justin making the right decisions? [Music] You know, Justin’s uh been through the mill. I remember when he came through at Burkedale and turned pro and missed 21 cuts. Yeah. Missing 21 cuts in a row was super tough way to start your career. And I felt like in some ways wished that the open hadn’t happened the way it had happened because it created this sort of scenario where expectations shot up, you know, and obviously I was affecting my stock price daily by playing more and more tournaments and and struggling and I wasn’t ready for that. you know, we hadn’t signed sponsorship deals, although there was a lot of talk about all these big deals coming my way. And then things got worse and worse. And my perception of it was every time I had a chance to miss the cut, the cameras would appear from out of the trees. Oh my goodness, this could be Justin Rose’s first chance to make the cut. The only other option I guess I had, which I just maybe look back at my life and I think, okay, if I’d have known a little bit more about that, then I might have made a different decision, would have been college in the States. You know, I felt like that could have been a a really good avenue for me to continue improving my golf with a little less pressure. But I was aware of the other stuff around me. Then you know a lot of criticism around my dad and his role. Was he too close? And that went on for the best part of a year. My dad then sort of fell sick and and he passed away when I was 21 years of age. So it was hard for me because we had a really really close relationship cuz you know he was just around me through those formative years where things can go good or bad. and uh you know he sort of tiptoed that that line which is really difficult as a parent to motivate me to push me uh he did believe that you know if I couldn’t handle being pushed then I wasn’t going to make it anyway you know you weren’t going to have the mental fortitude to kind of deal with the challenges that it takes to to get to the top of anything so yeah he was all about always committing to hard work discipline at times being pushed but he made it fun as well which is the key right so he did a great job of engaging me all the time until it was a point where okay you have to take ownership of it yourself and understand that, you know, these are your dreams, your goals, and not somebody else’s. There was definitely some scar tissue that that built up that I think took me maybe a decade to break through. And winning in the States in 2010 was probably the first time that I really felt like I had moved past that miscut period of my life. And then I fell into this really nice part of my career. Yeah. Nicely done. Really nicely done. Rosie is on a roll again. Justin Rose back in the winner circle. I mean to have the will to go forward. Says it all really. Goodness gracious. I mean Justin’s a great example to anybody who’s ever played this game. In Olympic news. Justin Rose brings home the gold medal for Great Britain. I’ve competed against Justin for a long time and he’s a guy that I’ve always looked up to in a way. I love the way he goes about his job. He’s very business-like. He’s not out there joking around. He’s getting his work done trying to win tournaments and an intense competitor. Major championship, gold medal, world golf championships, FedEx Cup champion, number one in the world. Checking a lot of boxes along the way here. Justin’s work ethic, I think, is second to none. He is totally dedicated. There’s no real days off. Everything that goes into being the best he can be, there’s no stone unturned and he’s still absolutely driven. What I had to do was then change my narrative, change my frame of reference and I had to strip things back. So leading up to my breakthrough, defining moment and a defining decision was to establish a great team around me. I started working with my Caddy Fooch and Sean Foley, my coach as well came on board. And obviously if you can have a team that’s streamlined and there’s no ego involved and everyone’s sort of pushing for the same goals that is so so powerful. And I think that once the team fell into place that was definitely the moment in time where there was a shift for me that took me from being very frustrated to that very sequential journey to the top. [Music] [Music] Yeah, to me the Ryder Cup represents the greatest team event in in all of sports. The thing that separates it from some others is the history behind it. A storied history almost 100 years where USA dominated for a long time and then Europe somehow found a way to compete. to anybody that uh has got it in them that’s competitive. It it ignites the fire. You know, the energy is just palpable. It is like nothing ever. I think the Friday morning first T-shot of the Ryder Cup is the most anticipated shot in golf. The crowd get there super early, 5:00 a.m., the the stands are full, the chanting’s going, the noise. You’re on the range warming up and you’re nervous. You can just feel it like you know it’s coming and it’s like something you just have to face. You can’t put it off. It’s like your tea time. 7:45. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. I’m going to have to walk out there and hit this shot. [Music] Welcome to Sky Studios. It’s a big day here. It’s a big day in golf. It is where we find out who the 12 strong team to represent Europe will be. A lot of decisions go into the Ryder Cup team and they start months before and better information, better advice. That was certainly a big key to everything I tried to do. And there’s a lot of data that goes into the the Ryder Cup and the buildup. And we have a great team around us that does all that analysis. First, the pure golf data is really important. Tracking the players, seeing how they do, reviewing the shot to-shot data, understanding what the golf course requires, and then we look at a lot of the profiles of the players. We take them through that so we understand how to to communicate and how to talk to them. someone from Spain reacts quite differently to someone from Sweden. They’re very different cultures, very different personalities. We have to understand how those personalities match up and fit together for the best pairings. So, that’s another data point. Um, you know, obviously the stats are important and form is really important, but there are other things that go into it as well. Let’s keep that rolling then with pick number three. Who’s it going to be? All right. Uh, well, this is someone with a wealth of experience, someone who will be playing his sixth Ryder Cup. My third pick is Justin Rose. First of all, I picked him because his form was still pretty good. Um, he just won uh in Pebble Beach earlier in the year, but if you want to win uh Ryder Cups, you need some experience. Um, people have been there. [Music] So, it’s from a rookie to a man with a wealth of experience in the RDER Cup. And joining us from Weworth, I believe we’ve got Justin Rose. Justin, good to see you. Huge congratulations. It’s a sixth appearance for you. I’ve got to ask, did you see another one coming your way? Hey, Nick. Um yeah, I mean listen, this is uh this has been a huge motivation for me. Um yeah, number six makes it sound all quite smooth, like they’ve been, you know, coming along at a decent pace, but um the last one definitely hurt. You know, not being a part of it and obviously my form wasn’t great around at the time and you can never take it for granted. Making the team is part one, but it doesn’t stop there. And once I got picked, I felt like the Ryder Cup was a month for me. Um, it wasn’t like Ryder Cup week. Okay, let’s go. Like, okay, the the moment Luke called me, I was in the Ryder Cup. Every meal I ate, every sleep I had, every supplement I took, every workout I did, every practice session I did, every decisions I made was for a purpose. He’s someone that’s very methodical, has a plan for everything. I think he thinks through everything he does with golf. You know, he’s someone that’s always looking for that edge. The ice bars, the steam rooms, the red light sauners and therapies. It’s it’s fullon. I think having that sort of perspective on what’s coming, like how big the RED Cup is and how intense it can be, I think, helped me make better decisions with my approach to the Ryder Cup. Knowing what I was about to face. So, what did I have to do to be prepared to make that moment that was eventually coming at me? You know, day by day by day was getting closer and closer. How can I be the most prepared I can be having made the best decisions I can make? It’s not very often we as golfers get together in that team atmosphere, in that team environment. Now, suddenly we have all these different cultures, different attitudes, different personalities, and we have to bring them under one umbrella and figure out how to get the most out of each other. you know there so there’s so many different decisions that go into the formulation of coming up with these partnerships that you’ll see in the Ryder Cup and the pairings aren’t finalized until we know the full team. So there we have it, Luke. There’s your 12 strong team. Give us a little idea about what you’re feeling about the makeup when you put them all together. I’m so excited. You know, a mixture of some great talents, some experience, some rookies that uh will be there for the first time. It’s it’s really a great team. I’m very excited about the next few weeks. Three weeks out, the team was finalized. I sat down with Justin. I’d already had a pretty good idea with some of the other partnerships and just the way all the stats, the personalities, everything matched up. It looked like as a veteran player, I needed him to sort of take under his wing, you know, a rookie player, and that was Bob. Rome was just nerve-wracking as hell. I could hardly sleep at night. I was up early hours. I was just nervous. But you dream as a kid to play a RDER Cup and you just want a shot at it. You just want to experience it and feel feel what it it is. And growing up, I never thought I’d ever play with Justin Rose. It’s just special. representing Europe, Robert McIntyre and Justin Rose. By being put in the elder statesman role, the only thing I can do is lead by example. And by leading by example, it meant that I had to remember all the things that work for me in order to lead by example. So I became my own best coach. So by trying to advise Bob, I carry myself. So for me, it was like the best scenario. He’s a great competitor, Justin. He’s a a veteran of the RDER Cups. I don’t think Bob could ask for anyone any better than than Justin Rose. [Applause] [Music] It was a Friday afternoon standing that first tea or even walking to the first tea on Friday afternoon. I’ve never felt pressure intensity on a situation that was coming from outside but also from myself because I I had a dream. I’m living a dream and I’ve got to a point that I’m about to do it. I’m about to hit that shot that I’ve always dreamed of as a kid. And I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if I was going to hit it straight. I was going to hit it sideways. If I was going to I mean get the ball in the tea. It was just pressure and I think it was brilliant to know that you’ve got Justin to say look everybody feels it. Let’s do what we do. He said let’s take over this tea and make it our tea box and just keep everyone else out the way like this is me and you. This is our our place and he just made me feel comfortable and confident and just made me play with freedom. Saw plenty of that. that spurred his run to make the team. Great reply. Great reply, Justin. Fist pumps there. Yep, that’s what we need. You know, Bob didn’t play that great on Friday. He really struggled a little bit. Friday, I felt like I was still contributing, but it didn’t feel like I’d played my best golf. Um Justin really put his arm around his shoulder at times and said, “Just keep going. You’re doing great.” Team Europe have done a stellar job all day long. the early morning session. Unbelievable. There were a lot of half matches in the afternoon. So, there was some white on the board, but there was no red on the board. And that one little bit of red was really bothering me. Like, and it was glaring was glaring at me. Like, it it made him a bit despondent, but he’s like, it just made him determined to turn that around. Came down to 18 basically. Missed the fairway off the tea. Better decisions prevailed. Kept it in play. Laid up. Good wedge shot dead into the sun. It’s hard to track the ball, but as soon as it came down and I saw it was near the pin and then he has this putt that’s, you know, breaks about two cups right to left with the whole team watching the whole crowd, all the amphitheater on 18. The energy, the atmosphere, the emotion was very high, which left me a scenario of okay, this is the last part of the day. This is the opportunity to have this moment. He was 15 ft. I’m standing there and I’m thinking, “Please, please just go in the hole.” I mean, I was surrounded by all the Rder Cup girls. I was kind of in a swaddle. Everyone was holding me. And I remember thinking, “If this doesn’t go in, I don’t think I can ever step on a golf course again. I mean, this is this is make or break for me. I just emotionally I just this is over.” You only think you know pressure when you win a major championship, but you come down the 18th hole with a rider cup all squared with all your teammates around the green and uh that’s pressure and the still the quiet. How you going to have that many people be totally silent? It’s really like time stops. [Music] [Music] And um you know I immediately just turned to my teammates and it was like yeah that’s for you and that’s for you and that’s for you and that’s for you. When he turns around and points I mean that just shows the the fire that he has. and he just starts pointing to you, you you you cuz he understands that, you know, team above self-interest is always the best way to get the most out of that team culture to understand that you’re playing for the teammates. You’re playing for every every individual on that team and you’re trying to make them better and you’re playing for more than yourselves. You’ve got a lot of individuals. You’re it’s an individual game. Everyone’s doing their own thing and you all have your own little teams, but then you connect and you’re this huge family. just the strength that you can draw from being surrounded by family. I mean, everyone can relate to that, right? You don’t have to be a golfer to realize. That’s I think why you see the emotion. You see what it means to people and you see their expressions come out because they’re with their innermost supporters. Made the park because I had 10 people willing it in behind me. It was a really um magical moment. It capped off just an amazing first day for us. We had created history by not letting the US win one single four point. And what uh Justin did was bring a lot of those learnings that he had throughout his experience and he relayed that to the team. He was a great mentor to some of these guys obviously great mentor to Bob McIntyre. Justin Rose as a player uh has been incredible. He’s done everything in the game of golf. He’s won all the way through his career qualifying for the Open doing well as an amateur. Obviously been on the ropes a bit when he he turned pro. Uh obviously that’s helped him to who he is now and created the fire inside his belly that’s always burning and as a rider cuppper I mean it helped me in in my first one. You know Bob grew in confidence because the support and the words that Justin gave him. They went out again on Saturday won their point and he got more and more and more comfortable in the situation. so much more comfortable that he beat the US Open champion Windham Clark in the singles and went undefeated in his first Rder Cup and as a team we just kept the momentum going. When you talk about Justin, it’s not just his performance on the golf course, it’s his influence just when he walks in the team room. To have someone in the team room that’s played five, that was his sixth. Not only does he bring the experience, but he also brings clarity and confidence to everybody and he helped the whole team that week. When we looked at that overall performance of the team that week, Justin was definitely central to the European effort and without him, I don’t think it would have been possible. I think uh there’s nothing like celebrating as a team. I think that’s what I’ve learned in the RDER Cup. You know, everything is magnified as a team. Your wins, your losses. Obviously, as an individual, we get good at winning and we share it with our families and we share it with our friends and we share it with our team. And that’s all well and good, but when you all pull together and you all have a collective goal, for some reason, the celebration and the feeling just feels magnified by doing it as a team. It’s funny. Um, I told Justin at the end on on Sunday after we won that that he’d been selected for the Nicholas Jaclyn Award presented by AON. Justin Rose, congratulations. You are this year’s winner of the Nicholas Jaclyn Award presented by AON. Thanks, Aon. And I think it was something that even made the RD cup more special for him to understand that out of all the players like he represented those ideals better than anyone. And um you know I think that was very cool moment for him and it was very cool when I when I got to tell him. We’ve heard stories about the concession and as we go further and further and further from that moment in time that story is going to have to continue to be told and obviously with awards like this it gives that story life. But as we get further and further away from these great um you know legends and icons of the RDER Cup, it’s awesome that these types of awards embody their spirit because that ultimately is what needs to be the glue to the RDER Cup. For Justin to win this award, I think was just such an honor because I think there’s still that little boy inside him that looks up and still remembers the Sebis, all the incredible players that have come before him, and he still aspires to be like that. So to actually win something like this award, it was almost quite a shock I think because it sort of really does mean that he is living his dream. He is living up to who he aspires to be. The Nicholas Jacqueline Award presented by AON to be honored with it is is amazing because of what it represents. Obviously, teamwork, integrity of the competition, being the best version of yourself, and competing fiercely because no one wants to see us just giving parts and oh, this doesn’t matter. We’re all nice guys. That’s not what the writer Cup’s about. Like, it’s about actually this is close to life and death, but it’s not. We don’t want to cross that line. And I think that that’s where this award sits. It’s like who values giving everything for their team, but understanding the honors and traditions of the game. And you know, I guess that’s the ultimate respect that we can give the players that have come before us on both sides. We’re united by a generation of players that have come before us. And this is our time. You know, Luke’s been very clear on that message. This is our time to shine. But it’s our time to shine, not because this is our stage. We are just taking care of it because of the amazing role models that we have before us that have shown us how to do it. Representing something bigger than yourself. And I feel like that’s for me what being a European Rder Cup player is all about. If I look back at it, I mean, the headlines are there, the high water marks are there. If you sort of put my career down in four or five lines, I I’ve achieved a lot of my childhood dreams, which is amazing, but there’s a bit of a hunger for more.