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The sweet day ended on a sour note, a poor drive requiring a punch out that left a 15-footer that didn’t fall. If Justin Rose was red, he didn’t show it, instead cleaning up what remained and nodding and smiling to the cheers that soon showered him on his walk to the clubhouse. That bogey still bestowed a record previously owned by Jack Nicklaus. Surpassing Jack in anything at anywhere is something. To do so here requires a special sort of gumption. However, he hasn’t yet earned the right to don the green jacket, something Nicklaus accomplished six times, which is precisely why Rose’s great day begets his greatest challenge.
The Englishman demonstrated his undeniable chemistry with this course once again, crafting a day’s-best 65 that secured a three-shot lead after the opening round of the Masters.
“It was a really good day’s golf on a golf course that was a stern test,” Rose said. “I think if you look at the overall leaderboard, not many low scores out there. A lot of quality shots, and delighted the way I played.”
Blasphemous as it sounds, Rose’s electrifying start made his eventual score somehow feel like a disappointment. As he later confessed, he was flirting with perfection throughout that opening round, golf’s version of a no-hitter. He ignited his charge by draining a slippery 25-footer at the first for birdie and proceeded to paint red numbers at both the second and third holes. He scorched the front nine with a blistering 31 and birdied the notoriously difficult 10th to reach six-under territory where few dare to tread. With two inviting par 5s and an accessible pin position at the 16th still ahead, Augusta’s course record appeared genuinely vulnerable. Even after settling for a 5 at the 13th, consecutive birdies at the 15th and 16th dangled the possibility of a 63.
Instead, Rose found himself scrambling at the 17th before committing his lone misstep at the final hole. But criticizing a three-shot Masters lead is like complaining about finding a free triple-layer chocolate cake with hand-piped buttercream frosting on your doorstep and lamenting that it lacks sprinkles; this demands nothing less than reverent appreciation. Not only did Rose card his finest round ever at Augusta National, but Rose etched his name into tournament lore, seizing the first-round lead or co-lead for an unprecedented fifth time, surpassing the record previously shared with the Golden Bear.
“I chunked the golf course in my mind, little mini targets, mini goals. And that’s the way I approached the day, and that’s going to be the approach tomorrow and the approach on Saturday and the approach on Sunday,” Rose said. “So really try to be clear out there. Really try to make sure I didn’t hit a shot until I was fully committed. Those are the kind of things that we say often, and they are pretty boring to hear, shot-for-shot, but ultimately there is no other way of doing. It’s just how good you are doing that in the moment, and it all comes down to execution. I know my way around this golf course. I have a straight strategy around here.”
It’s dangerous to extrapolate too much after 18 holes. The Masters is a four-day marathon designed to test every aspect of a player’s game and resolve. Yet this tournament thrives on history and tradition, and history stands firmly in Rose’s favor: nine of the last 11 Masters champions emerged from the top four positions following Round 1. For those tracking the leaderboard, those coveted spots after the opening salvos belong to Rose, the steady-handed Corey Conners, Swedish phenom Ludvig Aberg, and last year’s green jacket recipient, the formidable Scottie Scheffler.
“It makes sense because it’s the kind of golf course that needs a ton of respect,” Rose said, when informed of the recent trend. “So when you are playing with the lead or around the lead, you have the ability or you’re afforded the luxury of patience and respecting holes and respecting pins and things like that. When you’re in chase mode, you end up possibly making one or two silly bogeys by trying to play catch-up, and obviously that ultimately hampers the catch-up. Yeah, that does make sense. From my point of view, I know what holes suit me, what pins suit me, where I want to play defense, where I want to I feel like I can be on front foot. That’s all I can do, really, going into the next few days.”Rose has accumulated an impressive six top-10 finishes and two runner-up performances at this tournament, though it’s been a considerable stretch since he truly contended for the title. That would be his 2017 playoff, when Sergio Garcia’s birdie 3 vanquished his bogey 5 in sudden death. This defeat failed to derail Rose’s career trajectory; he would capture five victories over the next two years, claim the FedEx Cup, ascend to World No. 1 and contribute to a triumphant European Ryder Cup campaign. But then things went sideways—a bewildering equipment change that quickly deteriorated while persistent back problems robbed him of both power and practice time, leaving his once-pristine game in shambles. What followed was a punishing four-year odyssey through the wilderness of injury, subpar performances, and gnawing self-doubt, these tribulations extracting a hevy psychological toll. Yet Rose persevered, clinging to the conviction that this extended slump represented merely a temporary detour rather than his new competitive reality.
J.D. Cuban
He shattered his victory drought at the 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a triumph that secured his passage to the Ryder Cup where he delivered an unforgettable moment—drilling a pressure-packed putt on Friday that prevented the Americans from securing even a single full point on the opening day. Last year, he nearly captured the elusive claret jug while simultaneously conquering the adoration of the galleries at Troon. His current season has oscillated between extremes—three missed cuts and a forgettable T-47 finish in six starts, juxtaposed against legitimate contention at Pebble Beach (T-3) and a top-10 showing at demanding Bay Hill. These latter performances demonstrate how Rose continues to rage against golf’s merciless mid-career purgatory, that zone where most professionals in their 40s find themselves—too seasoned to consistently battle the game’s young titans yet too vital for Champions Tour relegation. When initially questioned about his late-career inspiration, Rose quipped that simply avoiding an expanded jacket size provided motivation enough, before revealing the true spark behind his competitive resurgence.
“To keep working hard and being in shape and giving myself an opportunity to keep competing with the best players in the world and to keep enjoying the stage like I had today. That’s a lot of fun. You know, it’s hard just to get into these tournaments. So just to keep that level of golf going, that gives me the access and the ability to keep competing at the highest stage and in the best events in the world. That is what motivates me. So yeah, you know, from my point of view, that’s a lot of fun today, and that’s what I’m in the game for is to feel these experiences.”
It’s hard to overstate how a Masters victory would recalibrate Rose’s already solid career. He stands as an Olympic gold medalist, a six-time Ryder Cup stalwart with an impressive 25 global victories adorning his résumé. He has already scaled the sport’s most highest peak with that career-defining U.S. Open triumph at Merion, and whatever follows cannot eclipse the significance of that momentous climb. Yet there exists a rarefied echelon of players who are inexorably held to a more exacting standard—legends for whom conquering a single mountain proves insufficient. Their talents demand additional climbs, and any failure to expand that collection of major championships gets interpreted as potential squandered. Rose’s remarkable tally of 22 top-10 finishes against a solitary major title creates a lopsided ratio that begs questions about why that singular achievement stands in isolation.
Rose himself acutely comprehends this unforgiving stigma, particularly at Augusta National, especially after shattering Nicklaus’ record. Rather than perceiving this as an affront to his legacy, he embraces it as evidence that what has thus far eluded him remains within his grasp—a green jacket hanging just beyond his fingertips, waiting to transform “what could have been” into “what finally is.”
“I feel like I’ve played well enough to win this tournament. I just feel like I don’t have the jacket to prove it,” Rose said. “I’ve obviously played, I’ve played a lot of good rounds of golf here. Got a lot of crystal, which is obviously always nice. But yeah, you know, ultimately, you want to be last man standing on Sunday, and I was a shot shy — I guess Sergio and I in 2017, that was a real 50/50. That could have gone any which way down the stretch. A little bit of Lady Luck here and there is always the difference here at times. But I’ve had my luck on occasion and been a champion. But you’ve got to be playing the golf to keep creating those opportunities, and obviously the only way to do that is to get your name on the leaderboard. I definitely don’t shy away from it.”
Ah yes, Sergio. It should be noted that Garcia endured 19 agonising trips to Augusta National—a record-setting pilgrimage of near-misses and disappointments—before his win. This marks Rose’s 20th appearance amid the cathedral of pines, his 20th walk on these grounds that have enchanted and tormented him. All respect to the incomparable Nicklaus, but this particular milestone—the perseverance through two decades of heartbreak before redemption—represents the true record Rose hungers to shatter this week.
Main Image: J.D. Cuban
