Bogey free round to Justin Rose

The golfer reflects about his opening round at Royal Portrush

one of the heat. There that works perfect. So what? No bogeies is that’s it. Pretty pretty good, huh? Yeah, I think that’s the highlight of the day. Bogey free for sure. I mean uh doesn’t take much on a Lynx course. One little kind of bounce, one bunker, one something. You can kind of uh easily rack up a bogey. So um yeah, I felt like, you know, felt like the golf course was felt a bit scorable in the middle part of our round. I felt like the weather was kind of favorable at that point. It was quite warm. It was windy but without being too windy. But then uh yeah, I don’t know if it’s cuz it was 9:00 at night, but the last couple hours just felt like getting it into the house, you know, got a bit blustery. Definitely got a bit trickier coming in. So happy to keep my concentration and yeah, get it in. You mentioned the time, Justin. I mean, it’s close to, you know, uh well, you’re out there a long time, right? Close to six hours. How do you stay present? How do you stay patient when it’s as slow as out there? Yeah, I mean, listen, I actually enjoyed the day. I enjoyed the round. I enjoyed the challenge. I was kind of keyed into all the shots today, so I guess time was irrelevant. Do you know what I mean? I didn’t kind of wasn’t quite aware it was taking that long, but um yeah, I don’t know why. I don’t know what it was. I mean, there’s a backlog on seven, but that can happen on tour when someone loses a ball or something happens, but don’t quite know why exactly we played so so so slow today. But um yeah, like you said, happy. It’s 9:00 at night. So now the trick is to come down off the round, get your recovery in, get your food in, get your rest in, try to get to sleep at a decent hour, get your, you know, so it’s uh obviously it’s just day one, so um stay focused and key into tomorrow now, but it’s definitely not easy at this time of day. What was the challenge today out there? I mean, just the golf course is difficult regardless or Yeah, I mean, I think there’s probably there’s a lot of decent scores, but I think um you know, the par fives offer you an opportunity. That’s one thing I didn’t do well today. I didn’t bury any of the par fives, but you know, there were the, you know, the fourth hole, sorry, the fifth hole was drivable. Par fives were reachable for the most part. So, there were opportunities to make the odd easy birdie and kind of keep your round together. Um, I I kind of just felt like I played a lot of the tough holes really well today. stepped up on those holes, hit good drives, good iron shots, kind of made easy pars on the tough holes, which kind of made me feel like I could be looking, you know, I could be on the front foot a little bit on the other holes, but you know, I kind of felt like, yeah, like I said, just didn’t take didn’t capitalize on the par fives, otherwise it could have been a great day. You obviously like last year was 12 months ago, but is there a sense of bit of unfinished business after last year that you’re bringing into this year or not really thinking so much about it? No, I mean, listen, uh uh you know, giving myself legitimate chances to win majors recently is a is a is a good feeling. It kind of makes me think I’m coming here as a contender, which is great. I’m not, you know, not here to try to find something magical. If I play my game and if I stick and do my best, I’m going to give myself a chance. So, that’s good to know. So, that’s kind of that’s my mindset coming in. I’m not trying to avenge anything or, you know, this golf course is different to Trune. So, you got to build a body of work. You got to master this week and this this tournament. So, that’s what I’m focusing on. Excellent. It seems the bunkers are a real challenge here. Like if if you want to try to avoid one, you’re going to have to worry about another one. Yeah. I mean, that’s classic links and I think that’s why guys love this golf course because strategically it does set up that way. It’s fair, but um yeah, it’s just well bunkered and strategically a great golf course. So, um but it’s fair as well. Like it’s not sort of Yeah, you know, you can avoid the bunkers here. you know, you kind of know if you’re going to hit it in them. Sometimes on a link fairway where you hit it and you’re like, “Oh, get a good bounce and anything can still happen.” Whereas I feel like here you sort of know if you’ve avoided it and you sort of know if you’re drafting towards one. So, uh, yeah, that makes it feel more kind of acceptable as a player. Justin, can I ask your thoughts on the first hole? Sort of the internal outbounds out of bounds on both sides as as like an opening hole. Thoughts on I actually didn’t even know there was outbounds till I watched the television this morning. Swear to God. I was like, I didn’t know. I knew there was outbounds, right? I had no idea there was outbounds left. So, I was like, oh, some things you don’t want to see, right? But, um, yeah, listen, it just Yeah, it is what it is. I don’t don’t really know why it’s there, if I’m honest. Um, uh, yeah, but I feel like one side’s enough. Yeah. Don’t think about the handshake. Cheers, Justin. Best luck tomorrow.