TROON, Scotland — Light on good results for a majority of this year, Justin Rose found himself on the outside looking in when it came to the British Open at Royal Troon.
The 2013 U.S. Open champion had fallen out of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking at the time of the May cutoff. He had not finished among the top 30 in the 2023 FedEx Cup standings nor the DP World Tour standings, which is another way to get in the field.
Heck, even his appearance in last year’s Ryder Cup wasn’t good enough. The R&A removed that exemption for the Open following the 2022 tournament.
So Rose, 43, turned up at Burnham & Berrow two weeks ago and took part in one of four final qualifying events in fields filled mostly with up-and-coming pros, dreamers and only a handful of high-level tour pros. That certainly was no guarantee.
Rose prevailed, earning one of the four spots there to secure a place in the Open for the 21st time. And during Thursday’s opening round at Royal Troon, Rose persevered through morning rain and wind to shoot 2-under-par 69 and trail early leader Justin Rose by a stroke.
Having made it via the qualifying process made the process all the more rewarding.
“Probably just a bit more gratitude just to be here from that point of view, 20 years probably-ish ballpark where you make your schedule in December and you go, O.K., Masters, Open, U.S. Open, PGA, how do we plan around that,” Rose said. “And this year it's like, hang on a second, I'm not guaranteed in the Open or the U.S. Open at that point, either. Had to do a little bit of extra hard work just to make sure I was here.
“Obviously it's a special event for me being a Brit. It's the one I've dreamed about winning ever since I was a kid, so obviously you've got to be in it to win it. That was the first part of the jigsaw puzzle was to make sure I qualified.”
Rose, from England, made two birdies and no bogeys, an impressive achievement when you consider the carnage around him. While Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy were racking up bogeys and doubles, Rose was steady in the wind.
The conditions changed considerably from the practice rounds, which typically saw the course play with the prevailing breeze. That means a relatively benign beginning with the wind mostly to the players’ back as they played the outward nine, followed by a tough wind coming in.
But it switched for a majority of Thursday’s early play, making the outward holes tough and causing players to adjust on the inward holes where they had not practiced from those distances.
“To be honest, I feel like it's to be expected at the Open,” said Adam Scott, who finished second to Robert MacIntyre on Sunday at the Scottish Open and started with 1-under-par 70. “I feel it can be unpredictable, and even teeing off in a fairly strong wind into on the first, I still felt like that might be the best conditions of the day so I should take advantage of it.
“It made me think all day because I haven't played that wind this week, and really I was picking clubs for the first time off every tee today. I hit very different clubs than I did in any practice rounds.”
Rose, who has won 11 times on the PGA Tour and 11 times on the DP World Tour, very much believes he still has another major championship in him.
The Open, perhaps, offers a better opportunity for experienced players as length is not as big of an issue. Examples: DeChambeau and McIlroy, each of whom were well over part despite their ability to dominate from off the tee.
“I've been around long enough to know what I'm capable of,” Rose said. ”I know how I'm feeling in the moment, can kind of get inspired by the situation. Been pretty good in my career at sort of winning the special ones. That’s kind of what I've been really working hard for the last two, three years is to have the opportunity late in my career to have a couple of special amazing opportunities. That's what's keeping me going.
“Will I compete week in and week out at the very, very, very highest level at 44? Who knows, but I still feel like I'm a good enough golfer to find my spots and find my angles and have my weeks where it all comes together.”
His relatively early finish on Thursday allowed him to sit back and see how the rest of the day transpired, with a later tee time Friday and curious to see how the weather impacts his abilities during the second round.
“If you're playing golf, I think today is great,” Rose said. “I think, what is it, 12 to 15 miles an hour? That's kind of the edge where you're in control of the golf ball and the elements aren't in control, and I think that's a nice way to play.
“I think when it gets more than that, the elements dictate a little bit more than the player dictates, and I think that's where it just becomes, O.K., just hang in, hang tough, see what happens. But I think if you can stay feeling like you're in control over the good shots and if you hit a good shot you'll likely know what the outcome is going to be, that's a nice way to play to golf, and I think that's how it was today.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as From Qualifying to a Bogey-Free Round 1, Justin Rose Playing British Open With Gratitude.
