For 10 holes of Sunday’s final round of the Masters, Justin Rose felt “in control” with a two-shot lead and the “mentality to run through the finish line”.<\/p>\n
By the time he was warmly welcomed on to the 18th green a couple of hours later, the Englishman was already rueing the “chance that got away”; another opportunity to win a Green Jacket gone.<\/p>\n
It was, sadly, all-too familiar territory for the now 45-year-old. Three times he’s finished runner-up, two of those times beaten in a play-off by Ryder Cup team-mates. Eight times he’s claimed a top-10 spot at Augusta.<\/p>\n
The best player to never win a Green Jacket? Now Rory McIlroy has two, Rose has a strong claim. <\/p>\n
Even Tyrrell Hatton, who had a fine finish to end up alongside his Ryder Cup team-mate in joint third, said “if there was anyone deserving of a Green Jacket it probably would be Rosey”.<\/p>\n
But golf is littered with hard-luck stories. Just ask Colin Montgomerie, the Scot who dominated European golf for a decade and had five runners-up finishes in the sport’s biggest tournaments without ever getting over the line.<\/p>\n
Rose at least has a 2013 US Open triumph to look fondly back on. And an Olympic gold medal from Rio in 2016.<\/p>\n
But the disappointment was hard to mask as he described this latest close call as “a bit of a stinger”.<\/p>\n
He added that coming up short this year was more “frustrating” than his play-off defeat by Rory McIlroy 12 months ago, as the man from Northern Ireland again came through to win a second successive title.<\/p>\n
“With a sudden-death loss, you know you got to the house,” said Rose, who also lost an Augusta play-off to Sergio Garcia in 2017.<\/p>\n
“You’ve done everything it took to win, then it comes down to flick of a coin at times.<\/p>\n
“I felt there was an opportunity to do better [on Sunday].”<\/p>\n
Rose led the field by two shots after a hat-trick of birdies from the seventh but, as so often happens at Augusta National, Amen Corner played a significant role in the outcome of the 90th staging of the year’s first major.<\/p>\n
The famed trio of holes at the lowest point of the course – actually defined as the latter half of hole 11, the short 12th, and tee shot on 13 – have seen many Masters hopes drowned in the water of Rae’s Creek.<\/p>\n
And while Rose avoided the ponds and streams that protect each of those greens, his momentum stalled with a bogey on the 11th. A fluffed chip cost him another shot on the iconic 12th.<\/p>\n
He found the green of the par-five 13th in two, but whistled his eagle putt past the hole and failed to knock in the return.<\/p>\n
His bid for a second major title vanished with a bogey on the 17th – an immediate and furious flick of his arm when the par putt sidled past the hole signalled he knew he was destined to miss out once again – extending the 13-year drought since his 2013 US Open triumph.<\/p>\n
“I was really in control – the first 10 holes – and the mentality was to run through the finish line, not just try and get it done,” Rose said.<\/p>\n
“I was by no means free and clear and was nowhere close to having the job done, but I was right in position.<\/p>\n
“I was playing great, but momentum shifted for me around Amen Corner. That three-putt was untimely for sure.”<\/p>\n
The final leaderboard shows he finished joint third, two shots adrift of the champion.<\/p>\n
At 45 years old Rose was aiming to become the oldest first-time Masters champion.<\/p>\n
He will be 46 in July. It’s the same age that legendary champion Jack Nicklaus was when he won a record sixth Masters and 18th major title in 1986.<\/p>\n
While Rose did not come of age in his 21st Masters, he is not giving up on his Green Jacket dream just yet.<\/p>\n
“I’ll just keep knocking on that door. See you next year, Augusta,” he posted on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 10 holes of Sunday’s final round of the Masters, Justin Rose felt “in control” with a two-shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-601145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}