Grinding Justin Rose gets off to flying Open start
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The Open hasn’t been kind to Justin Rose since he first burst onto the scene as a teenage amateur at Royal Birkdale nearly two decades ago.
His best performance since them saw him finish sixth last year at St Andrews and Rose came into this week at Troon stressing how dearly he would love to add his ‘home’ Open to the US Open he already has under his belt.
If 1st rounds are any guide, he must be in with a great shout. He turned in a superb performance for a -3 score of 68. What was so special about that showing was that he actually achieved a better back nine than he did the front, a somewhat remarkable achievement considering the reverse nine was causing so much pain and anguish, along with a host of dropped shots, all around him.
Most of the aggravation came at the ultra-demanding par-4 11th with the vastly experienced trio of Sandy Lyle, David Duval and amateur Scott Gregory being on the wrong end of total and utter carnage – they shot a combined 23, suffering 11 dropped shots between them. Unbelievable. And that was on a lovely warm, merely breezy day.
You can only imagine what will happen when the weather takes a turn for the worst from tomorrow onwards…
But back to Rose: his manager Paul McDonnell told me in mid-round he was “grinding it out” and that was exactly what he was doing. Keeping things nice and steady and keeping mistakes to a minimum.
Rose knows it’s a promising and encouraging start but no more than that. However, if he takes advantage of the friendlier front nine holes and continues where he left off today and similarly grind tomorrow and over the weekend, his boyhood dream of lifting the old Claret Jug could well be realised.
Americans have won the last six Troon opens and sure enough a gaggle of them feature on the leaderboard with Steve Stricker and Billy Horschel among them. Like Rose, they too fared two shots better on the dreaded back nine.
But currently setting a hot pace is another American Patrick Reed who described the difference between the two nines as ‘David versus Goliath.’
He explained: “The inward nine, especially with how benign the winds were today, they weren’t blowing very hard. I think the difference it seems like over here is when you get that wind off that water, even if it’s only blowing five, it’s a really thick and heavy wind.
“So five miles an hour at home is three to five yards max. Over here, it seems like it’s still 10, 15 yards you have to adjust for. But it played pretty easy it felt like, especially on that front nine, as long as you hit some good tee shots.
“It doesn’t matter if the wind’s blowing or not blowing, that back nine is tough. Every hole seems to be over 470 yards and then the par 3s you think, all right, I have a breather. Then you get to the par 3, and it’s 220.
“It’s one of these golf courses that it allows you to get off to a quick start and allows you to get almost overconfident and cocky. Then you get too careless on the back nine. You could go shoot 31, 41. You have to stay humble on it, and you have to take your medicine if you hit a wayward shot on strategising to at least salvage bogey.”
Rose has laid down his early marker and so, as always at Troon, have a string of Americans…
