PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND | On the eve of the Open Rory McIlroy was asked who, other than himself, he would like to win. It didn’t take him long to answer: Justin Rose.
That response might have been intended to soften the blow McIlroy inflicted on his English rival by beating him in a playoff for the Masters in April. But it was also recognition that Rose enjoys a favoured status among his fellow Europeans certainly and many Americans too. They like him and call him Rosie. They admire the arc of his career and applaud him for being as competitive as he is in his fifth decade. Two years ago he acquired a recreational vehicle at a cost of $250,000 and has had it fitted out as a mobile gym and medical unit that follows him around when he is competing in the U.S.
Much the same sentiments about Rose are held by Britons. Two days after McIlroy’s playoff victory over Rose on Sunday 13th April, the following letter was published in The Times, a well-known and very select platform for readers to air their views to do with the important issues of the day in the United Kingdom.
It was headlined “Master class” and was written by the Rev. Dr. Che Seabourne.
“Is there a greater gentleman in golf than Justin Rose?” was the opening sentence. “What extraordinary decorum and class he showed on the 18th green as Rory McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam; noting that this was the second occasion upon which Rose has lost a playoff in the Masters. His warm embrace of his Ryder Cup colleague was truly heartwarming in an oft-fractious community: truly a Rose among thorns.”
Having been beaten by only one man at Augusta, Rose, 44, is intent on maintaining his challenge for the Open, in which he was beaten only by Xander Schauffele at Royal Troon 12 months ago. He has dreamed of winning the Open since he was 8 years old. He tied for fourth as a leggy 17-year-old amateur in 1998 and was one of only two men to complete the fierce Dunluce Links on Thursday without a bogey in his score of 69, 2-under par and two strokes behind the leaders.
“I just felt like I played a lot of the tough holes really well today, stepped up on those holes, hit good drives, good iron shots, kind of made easy pars on the tough holes …” Rose said that day.
Not so on Friday, when his driving was a little awry and he ran up a triple-bogey 7 on the 11th. His hard-fought level-par 71 left him six strokes behind Brian Harman, the 2023 Open champion and the leader at that stage. For Rose, life was suddenly a little more difficult.
MacIntyre never looks entirely happy on a golf course, often muttering either to himself or to his caddie. For that matter, he never looks entirely happy anywhere, as though he is moving through a world in which he does not feel completely at ease.
If Rose had his mind on the Open and is also intent on making a seventh appearance in the Europe Ryder Cup team in New York in two months, so did Bob MacIntyre, the left-hander and one of Rose’s playing partners. They were teammates in the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome when Rose, 43, took MacIntyre, 26, under his wing so successfully they formed an unbeaten four-ball partnership.
Partners in that match-play event 22 months ago, they are rivals at this historic stroke-play event now and if MacIntyre was the junior partner in Rome, thanks to a world-class short game he has matured into a world-class player. In a case, perhaps, of a pupil surpassing his master he is ranked 14th in the world while Rose is 21st.
MacIntyre never looks entirely happy on a golf course, often muttering either to himself or to his caddie. For that matter, he never looks entirely happy anywhere, as though he is moving through a world in which he does not feel completely at ease. And beneath his slightly puzzled demeanour lurks a temper. “There was a couple of swears out there,” he said on Thursday.
He had little to swear about on Friday, one excellent shot after another screaming away from his clubface. His 66 was one of the day’s lowest and took him to 5-under par and within three strokes of Harman. It suggests that his second-place finish in last month’s U.S. Open at Oakmont was a true testament to his considerable (left-handed) ability.
“Yeah, that was impressive,” MacIntyre said, pushing his cap back on his head away from his eyes. “I felt like I done what I done on the front nine yesterday. Yeah, just a solid day’s work. I’m comfortable with the golf course. I’m comfortable with what me and Mike [Burrows, his caddie] are doing, and I just have to go out there and try and execute.”
“No, I’m not scared. I’m not going to back away. It’s completely different to Oakmont. Oakmont, I couldn’t roll the dice. It was never let’s press, let’s press. It was always, right, let’s go out here with pars. This week, hopefully come the 69th, 70th hole, I’ve got a chance. If I’ve got a chance, I’m going to go for it.”
Such was the concentration on one or both of these homegrown heroes that Bryson DeChambeau, the 2024 U.S. Open champion and the third member of their trio, was cast into the margins at least for the first six holes. For a man who works social media so hard and is not used to being overshadowed, this was unusual. In this time he seemed baffled both by the intricacies of a windless seaside links and greens that were more rumpled than an eiderdown.
It couldn’t last, one felt. DeChambeau is too good a golfer to continue playing this way and sure enough it didn’t. Starting at the seventh he launched a fusillade of birdies, three in succession from the 12th. This was more like it. This was more like the champion that he is. His 65, 13 strokes fewer than the day before, equalled the score of Harman though with a 36-hole total of 143 compared to Harman’s 134, DeChambeau has some ground to make up.