AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | Justin Rose and Bryson DeChambeau are a study in contrasts.
One is a reserved veteran, the other a brash maverick. One hails from England, the other from California. Elegance might be ascribed to one, while the other exudes power.
Despite their differences, both have major championship pedigree and enter the weekend at the 89th Masters well positioned to add a green jacket to their closet.
Rose, the 44-year-old PGA Tour campaigner, followed an opening 65 with a 71 at Augusta National on a breezy Friday and sits atop the leaderboard at 8-under par. DeChambeau, the 31-year-old LIV Golf competitor and YouTube sensation, added a Friday 68 to his opening 69 and is one back at 7-under.
For Rose, who won the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion, winning a second major a dozen years after his first would be a capstone to a career that already includes 11 PGA Tour victories, nine additional DP World Tour wins, the 2016 Olympic gold medal and the 2018 FedEx Cup crown. It would certainly put him in the Hall of Fame conversation, if he’s not already. And it would place him in a select group to have won a major in their 40s.
Rose’s last victory came at the 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but he contended in two majors last year, finishing T6 behind winner Xander Schauffele at the PGA Championship at Valhalla before finishing T2 in the Open Championship at Royal Troon, two strokes behind Schauffele.
As he approaches the weekend at Augusta, where he finished T2 behind Jordan Spieth in 2015 and lost in a playoff to Sergio García in 2017, Rose figures to draw upon those 2024 experiences.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to knock on the door,” he said. “I don’t think I can do anything differently. On both those occasions, especially Valhalla, I actually made a run into contention there, which is great. Got more and more comfortable as I got further and further up the leaderboard, too, which was really good for me to know because … there had not been a ton of opportunity for the previous couple of years.
“And then, yeah, the Open Championship, very much the same thing, given … how much you dream about winning them, [I] felt remarkably comfortable in those situations.
“That’s what I’ve learned from those two things, and to sort of make it happen this weekend is … what is it? Like if it was a secret recipe, you’d know it by now. But it’s about just playing great golf. And I think the leaderboard is stacking up very favorably for what looks like world-class players right up there. So you’re going to have to play great golf, and you’re going to have to go out there and want it and go for it and get after it. It’s as simple as that, really.
“To win it takes a little bit of luck and a great amount of skill set.” – Bryson DeChambeau
DeChambeau, who left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf in 2022, won last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst in what seemed like validation for the rival league. It was his second major title, following his victory in the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. He shared the 36-hole lead at last year’s Masters on the way to finishing T6, his best Augusta result.
“To win it takes a little bit of luck and a great amount of skill set,” DeChambeau said. “I feel like my skill set is the same, if not a little bit better in certain aspects. So I’m just going to give it my absolute best, and whatever happens, happens. And I’m OK with whatever does happen. Because ultimately … it’s not everything, but it would be amazing to win.”
For either player, prevailing on Sunday would mean outplaying the world’s top two golfers, Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy. Scheffler, who has won two of the last three Masters, shot 71 on Friday and is at 5-under, while McIlroy, who is once again seeking to complete the career Grand Slam, rebounded from a lackluster Thursday finish to shoot 66 Friday and is at 6-under.
After torching Augusta with eight birdies against a single bogey to seize the lead on Thursday, Rose persevered in breezier Friday conditions, and though his advantage narrowed, he never relinquished it. Coming home, he birdied the par-3 12th and 16th holes but gave those strokes back with bogeys at 14 and 17 after missing those greens from the fairway.
“[I] made … two good swings on 14 and 17, but just [made] misjudgments on the conditions and the wind,” he said. “Those two 5s could have been two birdie putts quite easily and would have changed the complexion of the round a little bit.”
Teeing off a little more than an hour after Rose, DeChambeau applied pressure early in his round, going out in 32 to climb within one stroke of the Englishman. The highlight was a holed bunker shot for a birdie 2 on the 240-yard fourth after he missed the green left. Shortly after, on his tee shot at No. 5, DeChambeau said he found the swing he had been searching for.
“On the fifth hole, I said to myself, I’ve got to feel something that’s a little different. And lo and behold, I think I just started to integrate more of an up-and-down motion. And that just felt more comfortable to me, and I started doing it, and it got more comfortable till the ninth hole.
“I hit the best drive I hit all week on 9. It was a perfect shot shape, exactly the way I saw it in my head, exactly what I practiced on the range. I was like, there it is. From there I felt comfortable, even though I played better on the front nine. That’s the way golf is. It sometimes doesn’t play out the way you statistically think it should. That’s why this game is so great. But I actually found it and felt more comfortable on the back nine than I did on the front nine.”
Although DeChambeau failed to birdie either back-nine par-5 and bogeyed No. 16, he birdied 17 by holing a right-to-left breaker from 15 feet.
As Rose played the 18th hole Friday, Donald and one of his vice captains, Thomas Bjørn, were chatting not far off the fairway. For his part, Bjørn was impressed with how Rose performed in Round 2.
In addition to chasing another major, Rose is pursuing a berth on Europe’s Ryder Cup team, the seventh of his career. He was one of Luke Donald’s six captain’s picks for the 2023 match in Rome and currently sits 28th in the standings, with the top six players qualifying automatically for the squad. Although Rose said he’s not putting undue pressure on himself to qualify, he acknowledged that competing for Europe at Bethpage Black is a huge goal.
As Rose played the 18th hole Friday, Donald and one of his vice captains, Thomas Bjørn, were chatting not far off the fairway. For his part, Bjørn was impressed with how Rose performed in Round 2.
“It was a nice backup to yesterday,” said the 54-year-old Dane, who was Rose’s captain on the 2018 European squad that won the Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris. “It’s hard to go out and stay focused, and he’s done well to stay focused. Anything in red numbers is always good out here.”