A Blooming Rose

For Justin Rose, the time has come. He had a successful foray to the Farmers Insurance Open in January, which he won, followed by a less successful late January jaunt to a tournament in Saudi Arabia, where he missed the halfway cut and received more money than a sheikh could shake a stick at. Then he took some holiday time at his home in the Bahamas, where the swimming pool of his house is perhaps 15 feet from the sea. Such were the goings on at the top of the world ranking that he could have been world No. 1 when he dived into his swimming pool and world No. 2 when he climbed out of it and world No. 1 again by the time he had finished towelling himself off.

Now, he is getting ready to fly to Orlando, Florida, where he once lived in an upscale development by a Briton on a street named Covent Garden and his neighbours were Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell and Henrik Stenson. There, at next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, which comes the week before the Players, Justin Rose’s season will start in earnest.

Late in 2018 Rose talked about his plans for this year: “…2019 is about the majors and the recovery required to play well in those events. I think that 2019 has to be a year that supports me into 2020. I can’t be on the accelerator every year flat out. 2020 is a massive year. There are the Olympics, a huge goal of mine." (Rose won the gold medal for golf at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.)

“It would be great to win a medal, perhaps a gold medal, again,...