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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI feel like it\u2019s a course that I love, actually,\u201d Rose said. \u201cI think it\u2019s one of the best courses that we play on tour. I think it\u2019s very fitting for this championship. It suits all types of players. But yeah, it\u2019s tricky as well. I feel like it\u2019s a venue that I would like to figure out a bit better this year, that is for sure. I\u2019ve had some good weeks here, some great rounds, but yeah, would love to put four together this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then, as you near the end of your round, you face one of the most famous tests in golf \u2013 playing to the near-island 17th green. Darren Clarke put this into context when he told GGP: \u201cThe 17th at Sawgrass is like waking up at 6:30 in the morning knowing you have root canal work at 3:30.\u201d Brooks Koepka revealed he had taken a 7 and an 8 on this par-3. Rose was asked what his highest scores were on this hole. He smiled at the question. He might not have liked to cast his mind back to bad memories but he had a good answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think maybe one of my survival instincts and the reason I\u2019ve been on tour so long is I don\u2019t have a great memory,\u201d he said. \u201cI think probably that was [a result of] starting my career with 21 missed cuts. I learned to not dwell too much on past mistakes. I don\u2019t really remember. I think maybe I remember last year, I think I hit it in the water close to the cut line on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s a tough hole. I think it\u2019s the kind of hole that conditions make it tough. You play it on a Tuesday, greens are relatively soft, you know there\u2019s not much to it. Put a back pin there, you don\u2019t want to have that tough putt. You\u2019re still trying to hit the right shot, but the greens are getting firm where you slightly misjudge the wind by a few yards, yeah, certainly that green plays small, which is obviously the beauty of the hole and why we\u2019re talking about it because, yeah, it does play tough some days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, to answer your question, yeah, from the fairway if you\u2019re playing well, you can really attack those pins, those feeder pins, much like Augusta, actually, a very second-shot golf course from that point of view.\u201d \u2013 Justin Rose<\/p>\n
Rose won the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in early February in runaway style, by seven strokes. He has had less success at TPC Sawgrass. In his 20 appearances his best finishes have been tied fourth in 2014, tied sixth in 2023 and tied eighth in 2019. He has missed the cut in three of his last four appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think it\u2019s feast or famine. A little bit risk and reward, really, I think is the ultimate way to play this golf course. You\u2019ve got to obviously do a lot of things well to \u2013 you\u2019ve got to put the ball in the fairway off the tee. That doesn\u2019t mean you have to hit drivers everywhere. There\u2019s a lot of holes that you can just get the ball in play with whether it be an iron or fairway wood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the golf course when it has just that little bit of moisture in it to the point where you can use the side boards and the side slopes to feed the ball kind of close to the hole. [The] 13th, par-3, for example, being able to use the side hill to kind of come down to that left pin. Sometimes when it gets really, really, really firm, the ball skips through those side boards.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, to answer your question, yeah, from the fairway if you\u2019re playing well, you can really attack those pins, those feeder pins, much like Augusta, actually, a very second-shot golf course from that point of view. I guess if you\u2019re on, you\u2019re playing well, making birdies, doing well in the tournament, but if you\u2019re a little bit off your game, you\u2019re missing those opportunities to make those easy birdies when they should come around. I feel like this golf course does offer a lot of opportunities, but on the flip side of that, there\u2019s trouble everywhere too.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was noticeable how comfortable Rose seemed when facing a roomful of questioners. His answers were articulate, well thought out, to the point and delivered calmly. These are all characteristics that will stand him in good stead when he captains Europe at a Ryder Cup. Increasingly it is not an \u201cif he captains his home continent in the biennial competition\u201d so much as when, even if, as we now know, it\u2019s not going to be in Ireland next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Justin Rose makes his 21st appearance at the Players Championship. Orlando Ramirez, Getty Images PONTE VEDRA BEACH,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,6920,1747,261934,85,264793],"class_list":["post-533441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-justin-rose","tag-pga-tour","tag-players-championship","tag-sports","tag-tpc-sawgrrass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533441","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=533441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2264956863.jpg\")
Justin Rose makes his 21st appearance at the Players Championship. Orlando Ramirez, Getty Images<\/p>\n