Justin Rose looked like a lot of the wanna-be contenders on Thursday morning as the 85th Masters made it’s return to April in Augusta.
Rose found himself getting roughed up by a golf course that played nothing like the soft, inviting layout of last November. No, Rose was being tussled about by firm fairways and greens that were repelling golf balls left and right.
By the time he walked off the seventh hole, the Englishman who finished second at Augusta National in 2015 and 2017, found himself an unenviable two-over par.
He managed a nice drive at the 560-yard par five eighth and found himself in between clubs — three-wood or five-wood. He chose to hit a hard five-wood. It trimmed the corner, landed on the mounds left of the green then took a bounce that changed the day for Rose. The ball bounded onto the green and eventually stopped just nine feet from the hole. Rose made the putt for eagle three, got back to even and that started a run that is seldom seen at The Masters.
All he did was play the last 11 holes in a dazzling nine-under par. By the time he narrowly missed birdie at the 18th, Rose walked off with the best round he’d ever shot at The Masters — a seven-under par 65 that was mind-boggling considering the course setup, difficulty and that fact that the last time we saw Rose, he was withdrawing from the Arnold Palmer Invitational last month on the third hole of the first round. He walked in after dunking two balls in the water on the third at Bay Hill, suffering from back spasms.
“I didn’t know where my game was coming into this week. I’ve worked hard to get ready,” he said. “The start was slow then experience kicked in.”
And Rose has experience at Augusta National. “I’ve had great experiences and bad experiences here. I have been right there,” said the man who missed a seven-footer to win on the 72nd hole back in 2017 then lost a playoff to Sergio Garcia.
His experiences after that eagle at the eighth were extraordinary. He birdied the ninth to turn in 35 (one-under) then added another at the 10th to start his way around golf’s most famous final nine.
He added two more at the devilish 12th and short par five 13th. That got him to four-under and he had the solo lead. That lead grew with three straight starting at the 15th and by time his day was done, he had his career best at Augusta National — a seven-under par 65 that gave him the lead in this major championship for the fourth time in his career.
He did what you need to do to go low on this course — “I putted the ball beautifully and read the greens unbelievably well,” Rose said afterward.
Rose admitted that after making that eagle at eight, “I calmed down.” And like he said, experience took over.
But after being absent from the PGA Tour since that first round at Bay Hill, no one saw this round coming, perhaps not even Rose.
“We trusted in the fact that when the gun goes off, the instincts kick in.”
Those instincts help him build a healthy four-shot lead over little lefty Brian Harman and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, the only other players who managed to break 70 on a day where defending champion and world’s No. 1 Dustin Johnson had to settle for 74 while No. 2 Justin Thomas, another pre-tournament favorite shot 73.
Rose also has the experience to know that first round leads don’t amount to much if you can’t follow up on them.
His approach?
“With 54 to go,” he said, “keep things in perspective.”
Editor’s Friday Morning Update: The game of golf is a day-to-day proposition and that showed up in Justin Rose’s game Friday morning. As easy as Rose made it look on Thursday, the game became a struggle on the front nine at Augusta National. It became a completely new tournament as Rose retreated and shot a three-over par 39 over his first nine holes. He went from seven-under par to four-under and brought a bunch of players back into contention. Hottest man on the course was Bernd Wiesberger, who was six-under through 15 holes, four-under for the tournament and tied for the lead with Rose.
