Rose taking a leaf out of Djokovic’s book
The Englishman admits that at 44 winning a major only gets tougher but he pins faith on his preparation for the 153rd Open
Following three recent close calls in majors, Justin Rose comes to the Open Championship at Royal Portrush on the back of missed cuts in the PGA Championship and the US Open this year.
However, if the thing about horses for courses is true, the Englishman feels this could be the week when he rekindles his love for links courses and goes one better than the battling second place he secured last year at Royal Troon.
The final-round 67 at the 152nd Open was a sublime effort in poor weather conditions. He did everything right to give himself a chance to win his first Claret Jug, but as luck would have it, Xander Schauffele simply had a better day.
Just before the 2024 Open, Rose had finished tied sixth at the PGA Championship, and earlier this year, he chased Rory McIlroy hard in the final round of the Masters before losing in the first playoff hole.
Rose was at the Wimbledon a few days ago, watching a 38-year-old Novak Djokovic beat young players before failing in his attempt to defy age against Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals. And that has made the 44-year-old even more determined to make the most of the time he is left with in the game at the highest level.
“When you’re sort of 28, you have that runway ahead of you. You are still going into the learning mindset of ‘get a little bit better at this and that, and if I can implement these changes, I’m going to keep giving myself these great opportunities’,” said Rose, who comes to the 153rd Open after a closing seven-under 63 that elevated him to sixth place at last week’s Scottish Open.
“Obviously, later in your career, you’re never quite sure how many chances are going to be left. And when you do come close, it hurts a little bit more because you know that it’s not getting any easier, and that’s obviously what Novak is saying as well.
“He is still capable. He is still probably believing that he can find angles and ways to still battle out there and maybe get that one per cent in a certain part of his game that might make a difference, and that’s what I believe I am trying to do as well.
“I would say overall, week-in and week-out, it’s going to be hard to get a ton better and transform my game to suddenly add new dimensions to it where I can kind of become incredibly dominant over the top young players. But I think in certain situations and in certain environments I can still kind of bring my best, and when I do that, I feel very, very competitive.”
Preparation, says the 2013 US Open champion, is the key. And especially in the case of majors, with all of them bunched together from the second week of April to the third week of July, and several important tournaments in between. It is almost impossible to get the right kind of work in the practice rounds from Monday to Wednesday.
“Preparation around the majors is something I’ve taken seriously probably for the best part of 10-15 years now, and I feel like I have done it differently to a lot of guys, and I have invested the time into preparing for major championships,” Rose said.
“Honestly, the last couple days have been very difficult to prepare. It’s very busy out there. There is a lot of crowd, a lot of people wanting a little piece of you, autographs and all sorts of stuff. It is chaotic. I feel like that’s not an environment to really learn the golf course at all.
“I started implementing some different strategies and it kind of worked perfectly for me. But yeah, I go and spend two or three days the week prior, so the course is pretty much in championship-ready condition, but there is no one there. You could spend eight hours doing whatever you wanted to do on the golf course. You could putt to every pin, you could make detailed notes, and I feel like that’s very difficult to do the week of the championship.
“I feel like I have implemented it early enough in my career, and I’ve seen it make a difference. I think I’ve performed relatively well in the majors over the last decade or so. A lot of that’s down to the preparation and the time I’ve put in.”
Rose has been paired with American Bryson DeChambeau and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre in the first two rounds.
