This could easily be about how JJ Spaun won’t be a flash in the pan major champion, but Justin Rose is ageing like a fine wine.
Jeopardy, or lack thereof, has been associated with the professional men’s game in recent years since the LIV Golf League appeared on the golfing landscape but Rose has rolled the dice on his career on more than one occasion.
The Englishman was tipped for stardom after he finished fourth at the 1998 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale as an amateur, but subsequently missed his first 21 cuts as a touring professional.
Rose persevered and it’s that perseverance that has seen him become the oldest European winner on the PGA Tour in the modern era.
Seemingly a prime candidate to join LIV Golf at its inception in 2022, Rose bet on himself that he could still hack it with the best of them on the PGA Tour into his forties.
Now at 45, Rose has won twice on the PGA Tour, finished second in two major championships, qualified for two Ryder Cups and is now back inside the top-10 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
How easy would it have been to follow his former European Ryder Cup teammates, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Henrik Stenson to the Saudi backed tour? Considering he ended 2021 left out of Pádraig Harrington’s European side in Whistling Straits and was 76th in the world in 2022 – when LIV came on the scene – the smart money would have been on Rose joining a Majesticks team.
But Rose knew where the smart money was and he lumped on himself and he has been rewarded in spades. He is not in an Indian summer phase of his career, he looks like someone who could be competitive until he is 50 at least.
Long tipped as the 2027 Ryder Cup captain for Europe in Adare Manor, he will be 47 and he looks a contender to assume a playing role.
“I still feel like there is that golden summer of my career available to me,” Rose said. “That’s what I’ve been pushing for. Moments like getting close at Troon and then obviously getting close at Augusta they’re signals that it’s possible.
“This is another really, really, really important signal that I’m on the right track with my game, and actually, maybe even getting a little bit better at the moment. Will I ever be the best player that I was when I was maybe 2018 No. 1 in the world? I don’t know, but I don’t have to be, I don’t think, as long as I can find it at the key times.”
Rose produced a nerveless performance at an age where his nerves should be shredded. Time after time when the pressure was put on by Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler and later JJ Spaun in the playoff, he played one clutch shot after the next.
Yes, he rode his luck with the drive on the first playoff hole.
LIV Golf gets criticised for being a cash grab when the FedEx Cup is not too dissimilar to that. But Sunday night’s viewing was as good as there has been for a long time on the PGA Tour.
