There was one very happy man at Augusta on Monday morning, and there were 52 all in a stew, turning over thoughts of what went right and what went wrong, that short putt on the sixth, that wayward chip on 12, that sliced drive on 15, or whatever it was that cost them their shot at winning this year’s Masters.
While Rory McIlroy can enjoy what was, everyone else in the field is wondering what might have been. Justin Rose would feel it most. Rose, the antagonist in Rory’s story, scored 65, 71, 75, 66 — the last of them “a bogey away from being the greatest round I’ve ever played,” he said.
The second shots in the playoff summed it up. Rose’s was pretty near perfect in the circumstances and landed 15 feet from the pin. McIlroy’s landed just beyond it, caught the slope, rolled back down and around, past Rose’s ball and finished up 5ft from the cup. Sometimes good just is not good enough.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Yeah, it hurts,” Rose said. “What are you going to do about it, though?”
He was the first to hug McIlroy close in the moments after he had made the winning putt. “Listen ... I was glad I was here on this green to witness you win the career grand slam,” he said.
Rose has now written himself into the story of the tournament, it would be impossible to tell the history of the Masters without mentioning him. He has finished runner-up three times, losing two playoffs. Both times, he was second-best to two of the most popular Masters champions, Sergio Garcia, who won his first major after 21 years of trying in 2017, and now McIlroy, who completed the career grand slam.
Any other year, the European fans would have been thrilled when Rose holed that 20ft putt on 18 to tie the lead, but not this one. Rose understood. “We saw part of history today,” he said. “It’s a momentous day in golf.”
Rose made a little of it. He is the first to have led the field through the first two days of competition on three occasions and is in the extraordinary position of having been top of the Masters leaderboard after 18, 36, 54 and 72 holes, twice, without winning it.
He is 44 now, and playing as well as ever, but at that age, things change quickly. Who knows how many more chances he would get? “It doesn’t get any easier for sure,” he said.
When he was young he assumed the game would get easier with age, but if anything he is working harder now than ever.
“The reason I’m willing to put in that work is for these moments, like the standing ovation on 18 when I finished. I took a moment just soaking that in. That was a nice moment because it was still what might be, what could be. One day, I won’t be competing this way at this tournament. So for now, the hard work is worth it,” he said.
McIlroy said: “He’s a great champion. He has displayed so much grace throughout his career. I remember watching the playoff in 2017 when he went up against Sergio and that didn’t quite go his way, either, but he’s had a phenomenal record around here and I feel for him because he’s been so close, and he’s a good friend.”
McIlroy knows the disappointment better than most and stopped to swallow a lump in his throat. “Yeah, hopefully he has a few more opportunities.”
Their friendship was forged through all the years of playing together in the Ryder Cup. It was conspicuous that as well as Rose, a couple of other Europeans, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry, were among the first to congratulate McIlroy. Even in the thick of all this, the tournament at Bethpage in September was in the back of McIlroy’s mind.
“Selfishly, I was happy it was another European in the playoff,” he said. “We’re on a good run at the minute, Ryder Cup year and all that.”
It had not been quite clear whether Rose was going to make the team this year, but there is no doubt about it now.
“What do you choose to dwell on? There’s no point in being too despondent about it. You have to look at all the good stuff that got me into this situation. You can’t skip through a career without a little bit of heartache. It’s not going to happen,” Rose said.
“If you’re willing to lift the big championships, you’ve to put yourself on the line. You have to risk feeling this way to get the reverse,” he said.
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