{"id":460259,"date":"2026-02-05T14:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T14:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/460259\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T14:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T14:51:14","slug":"even-after-his-latest-win-were-underrating-justin-roses-late-career-renaissance-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/460259\/","title":{"rendered":"Even after his latest win, we’re underrating Justin Rose’s late-career renaissance \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best single round anybody had at the Bethpage Ryder Cup last September came during the Saturday afternoon four-ball session, when Justin Rose gained a frankly absurd 5.84 strokes on the other 15 players on the course. The bulk of that came from his putting (+4.86 strokes), and a brief look at the hole-by-hole details tells an even wilder story, starting with a 10-foot birdie putt on the first. Before it was over, the Englishman representing Europe for the seventh time would make putts of six feet, eight feet, seven feet, 21 feet, 16 feet, 15 feet and six feet again. Everything that was remotely makeable went in, like clockwork, and in the process he and Tommy Fleetwood swept aside two of the world\u2019s best players and America\u2019s last hope, the team of Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau, almost like they weren\u2019t even there.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Justin Rose proves he\u2019s an ageless wonder in record-setting win at Torrey Pines<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWatching Justin Rose on the golf course is some of my proudest few hours on the golf course,\u201d Fleetwood said after the match. \u201cAbsolutely amazing. What a golfer, what a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to dismiss that round as one man having an anomalously great day, but when taken in the context of his past year, it might actually be the most emblematic moment of them all. What Rose has done in the past 19 months, rising from 67th in the world to third, would be nothing short of incredible for anyone, but for him to do it at age 45 feels like a miracle. But it\u2019s a miracle that has been performed rather quietly, considering the onslaught of huge stories in golf over the past year and change. Even after his blowout seven-shot win yesterday at the Farmers Insurance Open, there\u2019s an argument to be made that we\u2019re not appreciating enough just what he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

Go back to 2022, and it seemed like Rose\u2019s story had been written. After rising to world No.1 for five short stints in 2018 and early 2019, he had faded fast, and by early 2023 he was down to 84th. A win at Pebble Beach that year gave him a bump, but in the aftermath, it seemed to be a brief Indian summer preceding the true winter of his career. He was the right age for a decline, and it wouldn\u2019t have tarnished his legacy \u2013 he had his major, he had his world No.1 ranking, and he had his tremendous Ryder Cup record (his putt on 17 against Phil Mickelson in Sunday singles at Medinah in 2012 is arguably one of Europe\u2019s five greatest moments ever). His name was secure in golf history. In fact, he seemed to be the perfect demographic for a jump to LIV Golf, which reportedly offered him $US60 million to do just that.<\/p>\n

Why not, then, follow his European mates and take the bag, if you will? As Rose said in his victory press conference from Torrey Pines, his ambition had not yet run dry.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Walk up 18 at Torrey was special for Justin Rose, whose caddie was in hospital when he won the 2019 Farmers<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been easy to potentially do other things, but none of that excited me,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd none of it gave me access to what I wanted to achieve. So I kind of always felt like my childhood self wouldn\u2019t feel very good about making that decision and kind of giving up on those dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

How then has he done it, how has he managed to play arguably the best golf of his career at an age that doesn\u2019t lend itself to such success? Part of it was a coaching change. He brought Mark Blackburn on board in late 2022, replacing his long-time coach Sean Foley. Blackburn fixed some inconsistencies<\/a> in his swing while reducing stress on Rose\u2019s injured back. A year later, he brought his former caddie, Mark \u201cFooch\u201d Fulcher, back onto the bag and recommitted himself to a fitness regime that is supplemented by a mobile gym he takes with him while travelling on PGA Tour. Results didn\u2019t come immediately, but he was on the way to defying Father Time.<\/p>\n

His first half of 2024 was uneven (generously), but something clicked that July at Royal Troon. He couldn\u2019t quite catch a red-hot Xander Schauffele, who was turning in one of the great back nines on a major Sunday this century, but his T-2 finish was a springboard. Two top-10s in 2024 led him to last April\u2019s Masters, where he almost interrupted the year\u2019s most emotional story when he forced his way into a playoff with Rory McIlroy after a clutch birdie putt on 18. Rose didn\u2019t win, but his class afterwards was another high point in his renaissance, albeit this time from a character standpoint. Somehow, he channelled what had to be a crushing disappointment into a show of true appreciation for McIlroy\u2019s career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n

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Rose lost to Rory McIlroy in a playoff last April at the Masters, but picked up fans for the way he handled himself in defeat. [Photo: Harry How]<\/p>\n

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Rose\u2019s veteran presence at the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage helped Europe pull off the surprising away win. [Photo: Harry How]<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a knock on Rose, it\u2019s that he might be the greatest player to have ever won just one major, which isn\u2019t quite as bad as the best to have won zero, but still comes with a baked-in judgement. He knows as well as anyone else that there aren\u2019t many chances left, and to come so close at both Troon and Augusta in back-to-back majors must have been agonising. One more major would certainly lock down a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame, one many think he already has coming in the future. Still, he rose to the historical occasion as McIlroy celebrated, and fans noticed what Fleetwood would make explicit five months later: What a human being.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t win any of the other majors last year either, but soon after The Open, he won the FedEx St Jude to crack the top 10 in the world ranking again and secured two points for Luke Donald at Bethpage. He\u2019s continued a concerted effort to pick up swing speed, helping him be as long off the tee as at any point previously in his career. In turn, it took almost no time at all to win in 2026, increasing his career PGA Tour victory mark to 13.<\/p>\n

RELATED: The clubs Justin Rose used to win the 2026 Farmers Insurance Open<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s next? At this point, to put the exclamation mark on the story, you\u2019d want Rose to win a major. He wants it too, and he\u2019s not afraid to say so.<\/p>\n

\u201cMajors is where I have my attention, for sure,\u201d he said in victory. \u201cI\u2019ve achieved a lot in the game, but I\u2019ve achieved a lot of it just once\u2026 The dream of winning all four was obviously the ultimate goal since I\u2019ve been a kid. but it seems a long way off to think that way, but if you think about some of the results I\u2019ve had in the past year or 18 months, I\u2019m not that far away, so may as well keep believing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept of a career slam feels wildly far-fetched, but that\u2019s not exactly the point here. The point is that through intense work at a moment in his life when he didn\u2019t have to \u2013 when he could have taken a hefty payout and coasted like several of his peers, and nobody would have blinked \u2013 he has earned the right to believe. He\u2019s earned our belief, too, even as he\u2019s remained a secondary character in the greater golf imagination throughout his remarkable second act. He\u2019s swimming against the current of time, and we know that the current always wins in the end, but the rest of us are catching on to what Rose has known for some time: this is not the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The best single round anybody had at the Bethpage Ryder Cup last September came during the Saturday afternoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,230859,1379,755,138747,6920,44,1747,85,42347,219603],"class_list":["post-460259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-farmers-insurance-open","tag-features","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-justin-rose","tag-news","tag-pga-tour","tag-sports","tag-tommy-fleetwood","tag-torrey-pines-golf-course"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}