Justin Rose thoughts after Friday day at Memorial Tournament.
what turned things around was it hauling out at three and going from there what uh yeah that definitely I mean actually to be honest with you I I thought I hit it in the hazard on number two You know just ran out of fairway looked like it disappeared Um ended up finding the ball being able to make par So you know walking off the second hole six over actually seven over because I bogeied one It was like oh yeah this is not the momentum start I was looking for And then yeah exactly You know holding the shot number at number three sort of kickstarted thing Suddenly I was in the red for the day um plugging away I knew the course was super tough I knew I probably didn’t need to do you know go super low to make the cut today which was primary objective was to make the cut but um yeah things really started flowing I actually felt like I didn’t play that well today I didn’t really hit my irions all that well Um but I did everything today that I haven’t been able to do the last few rounds I just haven’t been able to score You know the PJ championship was super disappointing with the short game Had no momentum every time I missed a green Wasn’t able to up and down wasn’t taking advantage of the par fives those sorts of things And today it was just the opposite You know I kind of hung in there with some good chips some good short game at the right time made some good putts to keep momentum going And that’s that’s exactly what you need So um yeah of course I mean there’s no letup really with it If you do hit a poor shot you you’re you’re severely out of position today So uh delighted to have kind of got myself back into the not just make the cup but back into the golf tournament Is there any masters hangover for you at all um not consciously Um great You know quite possibly I think you know definitely there there is stuff to process there for sure And I think obviously a lot of people want to keep talking to you about it so it’s hard to put it 100% behind you all the time but uh I think I probably you know I had two weeks off after uh Hilton Head and felt like I did a little bit of work but not a ton of work And I felt like there was a little bit of slip slippage in that period of time Yeah So um you know definitely felt like it took a week Well it’s probably taking me a little bit of time just to to really kind of find that um yeah that form again I suppose Um you know I think traveling back and forth from England and I I’m you know this year I’ve definitely tried to change the way I’m approaching my weeks off at home But um I do kind of feel like it’s my weeks off that are the problem not the playing you know Um so yeah it’s definitely a balance What happened to Truist you had the withdrawal Were you sick or did you hurt something yeah No I was just sick there Kind of just uh you know the man flu I sniffle Um Um but yeah no I wasn’t feeling great Um I was already seven over par and I was conscious that the PJ was coming up the following week I was just Yeah I was just under you know like flu basically just achy and not feeling great So um yeah that but I think that knocked me a little bit Yeah PJ just was not was not out the gates And then obviously I felt like yesterday I was two under par through eight holes and I felt like okay you know really prepared well this week and coming into this week So yesterday was a real kick in the in the ghouies as we say in England Um [Laughter] sorry Yeah No it’s um you the backline yesterday Yeah And the finish I had yesterday was kind of tough tough but uh yeah great to rebound today and uh and see some red numbers How do you spell ghoul you have to Google it Google it Was it hard for you to comprehend that you’re still coming here to this venue 15 years after winning your first PJ tour event at this place yeah I mean listen I felt like it took me a long time to win my first PJ tournament tour event Uh you know I’ve been on tour over here since I was three So it definitely took me quite quite a bit of time to break through on this tour So there were seven years before breaking through and now 15 years since So yeah I mean it’s it’s quite amazing when I think about it like that Um but yeah the 15 years I mean you know the image I have is my little son Leo was kind of messing around in a bunker behind 18 I mean now you’d lose him in these bunkers but back then you could still see him in the bunkers Um how much pride do you take in that just playing that long Yeah I think I’m getting to that stage in my career where that is the goal now you know sort of having pride of performance and trying to buck the trend of what you know is a natural kind of aging process is it does there are things that are more difficult or get more difficult but yeah you don’t want to kind of believe it and I still think my good is good which is what I’ve seen this year it’s been inconsistent this year um but my good is good and that’s the most important thing to see I’d rather that than top 20th every week um just to know that if I do put things together I’m capable of winning you know and I think that’s that’s still I still believe that longevity is is underrated frankly consistency who who inspires you long or doesn’t count yeah yeah he’s crazy for Sure I think uh you know Steve Stricker I think is a really nice example I think he won is see like nine time maybe nine times in his 40s and I think he did it you know living in the Midwest you know locking things up for winter having a great family didn’t sacrifice the world in order to do it you know he’s a really good I think uh role model from that point of view So uh you know if you could have a career like his in his 40s I think that’s what I would say is doable but aspirational Um and maybe not a name you’d probably think that would come to mind first and foremost uh you know there’s a lot of if you choose to kind of go all in there’s other things in your life that suffer right so it just depends on on the balance of that but um you know in other sports obviously yeah I mean Jovovich clearly is sort of the one pushing greatness for in a sport where you do wear out pretty quick what about Scotty yeah listen I mean Adam’s a huge benchmark for me and I think I am for him you know we’re both within couple weeks of each other in terms of age if you look at our careers they’re remarkably similar in terms of top 10’s cuts made He’s got a couple more wins but majors this that the other FedEx cup you know like world number one very kind of quite interestingly comparable and you know good friends as well But um there’s things that he does really well that I’m like I need to push myself to still be competitive that way And I’m sure he looks at my game and thinks there’s things that he needs to do to to sort of compete with me So yeah he’s a you know Sergio as well We’re sort of all like around 1980 I think Sergio still plays good golf you know Um obviously not seeing as much of him anymore to really kind of go up headto-head but yeah um I think we’re the three players that have kind of kept the form you know in terms of just being out on tour and competing and popping our names up on the leaderboard once in a while We’re probably the the guys doing doing well at that In what ways are you now than you were 20s um I mean it’s just good question And um I’d say generally I’ve putted the ball better in the last five or six years than I did throughout my 20s and 30s Like you know I was an elite ball striker I think for a long long long time And uh if I’d have putted it as I did now back then I would have probably done a lot of damage But um that’s been an element of my game I’ve had to figure out And like anything the ball striker hasn’t quite been as as good But you know you it’s nice to know that I have access to it all It’s just finding putting all together on the right week Can I ask you um your thoughts on Oakmont you you played it obviously in the US Open Yeah It’s got such a great you know hard reputation Does it live up to it do you recall the first time you visited yeah I just remember sort of um expecting you know with the name Oak oak trees and I was expecting more a treeine golf course and I was just like staggered by a sea of green grass I was just like whoa Um it’s tough for sure I think um from my point of view I think I’ve got to approach it with you know I’ve put a mini driver in the bag this week um with the premise of I think I need to hit it in play at the US Open I think there still the guys who hit it far enough um can still still be very aggressive off the tea That doesn’t really suit me I don’t hit it quite far enough to to justify being in the rough So yeah I think from the way I’m going to try and play the golf course it’s uh definitely you know you got to be somewhat long off the tea 280 to 320 You got to hit it in that zip code but um you got to put it in play So yeah that’s my recollections of you can’t play that golf course from the rough as you can’t play this week from the rough When you sorry when you hear from people about the Masters does that make it I don’t know Does it soften the blow of of not having won or does it fuel you to go “Oh that was nice that they’re Yeah congratulating me for that or Yeah I think selfishly they enjoyed it because someone kind of was there to step up and have a good round and make it interesting So I think from a watching point of view which I haven’t had a chance to watch it back apparently it was a good watch So I think people I think people were just grateful that you know there it was it was exciting in the end Um I think that that’s what people kind of enjoyed Um yeah so from my point of view yeah I think I’ll look back at it always with where there were a couple of opportunities but Rory gave me huge opportunity as well like you know there’s no way I should be in a playoff um you know when he’s in the middle of fairway on 18 So you know you and I stepped up and hit the great hit the good you know hit every bit as good of golf shots as I could hit under in the moment I felt like I learned a lot from 2017 when I was in a similar situation So yeah from that point of view I can walk away from it a lot easier than if I had have done something in the moment where I knew I’d let myself down Yeah Yeah Thanks Justin Thanks Cool Good point
