Q. What turned things around? Was it holing out at 3 and going from there?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, that definitely -- actually, to be honest with you, I thought I hit it in the hazard on No. 2. I just ran out of fairway, looked like it disappeared, ended up finding the ball, being able it make par. So walking off the second hole 6-over -- actually 7-over because I bogeyed 1 -- it was like, oh, yeah, this is not the momentum start I was looking for.
And then, yeah, exactly, holing the shot at No. 3 kick-started things, suddenly I was in the red for the day, plugging away. I knew the course was super tough. I knew I probably didn't need to go super low to make the cut today, which is primary objective was to make the cut. But yeah, things really started flowing. I actually felt like I didn't play that well today. I didn't really hit my irons all that well. But I did everything today that I haven't been able to do the last few rounds. I just haven't been able to score. The PGA Championship was super disappointing with the short game, had no momentum. Every time I missed a green, I wasn't able to up-and-down, I wasn't taking advantage of the par-5s, those sorts of things.
And today it was just the opposite. I kind of hung in there with some good chips, some good short game at the right time, made some good putts to keep momentum going, and that's exactly what you need. So yeah, the course, I mean, there's no letup really with it. If you do hit a poor shot, you're severely out of position today. Delighted to have kind of got myself back into the -- not just make the cut, but back into the golf tournament.
Q. Is there any Masters hangover for you at all?
JUSTIN ROSE: Not consciously. Quite possibly. I think definitely there is stuff to process there for sure, and I think obviously, a lot of people want to keep talking to you about it, so it's hard to put it a hundred percent behind you all the time.
I had two weeks off after Hilton Head and felt like I did a little bit of work, but not a ton of work, and I felt like there was a little bit of slippage in that period of time, yeah. So definitely felt like it took a week -- well, it's probably taking me a little bit of time just to really kind of find that form again, I suppose.
I think traveling back and forth from England, and I'm -- this year I definitely tried to change the way I'm approaching my weeks off at home, but I do kind of feel like it's my weeks off that are the problem, not the playing. So yeah, it's definitely a balance.
Q. What happened at Truist? You had to withdraw. Were you sick or did you hurt something?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, no, I was just sick there. Kind of just the man flu, a sniffle. But yeah, no, I wasn't feeling great. I was already 7-over par and I was conscious that the PGA was coming up the following week. Yeah, like, flu, basically, just achy and not feeling great. But I think that knocked me a little bit. PGA just was not out the gates and then obviously I felt like yesterday I was 2-under par through 8 holes and I felt like, okay -- really prepared well this week and coming into this week. So yesterday was a real kick in the goolies, as we say in England. The back nine yesterday, the finish I had yesterday, was kind of tough, tough, but great to rebound today and see some red numbers.
Q. How do you spell goolies?
JUSTIN ROSE: (Laughing.) You'll have to Google it.
Q. Is it hard for you to comprehend that you're still coming here to this venue 15 years after winning your first PGA TOUR event at this place?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I felt like it took me a long time to win my first PGA TOUR event. I had been on TOUR over here since 2003, so it definitely took me quite a bit of time to break through on this TOUR. So there was seven years before breaking through. Now 15 years since. So, yeah, it's quite amazing when I think about it like that. 15 years. The image I have is my little son Leo was kind of messing around in a bunker behind 18. Now you'd lose him in these bunkers, but back then, you could still see him in the bunkers.
Q. How much pride do you take in that?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think I'm getting to a stage in my career where that is the goal now sort of having pride of performance and trying to buck the trend of what, you know, is a natural kind of aging process. There are things that are more difficult or get more difficult, but yeah, you don't want to kind of believe it. I still think my good is good, which is what I've seen this year. It's been inconsistent this year, but my good is good, and that's the most important thing to see.
I would rather that than top 20th every week, just to know that if I do put things together, I'm capable of winning. I think that's still -- I still believe that.
Q. Longevity is underrated, frankly, consistency. Who inspires you? Langer doesn't count.
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah. He's crazy, for sure. Steve Stricker, I think is a really nice example. I think he won, like, nine times, maybe nine times in his 40s. I think he did it living in the Midwest, locking things up for winter, having a great family, didn't sacrifice the world in order to do it. He's a really good, I think, role model from that point of view.
So if you could have a career like his in his 40s, I think that's what I would say is doable but aspirational and maybe not a name you would probably think that would come to mind first and foremost. There's a lot of -- if you choose to kind of go all in, there's other things in your life that suffer, right? So it just depend on the balance of that. But in other sports, obviously, yeah, I mean, Djokovic clearly is sort of the one pushing greatness for -- in a sport where do you wear out pretty quick.
Q. What about Adam Scott?
JUSTIN ROSE: Listen, Adam's a huge benchmark for me and I think I am for him. We're both within a couple weeks of each other in terms of age. If you look at our careers, they're remarkably similar in terms of top 10s, cuts made. He's got a couple more wins, but majors, this, that, the other, FedExCup, like, world No. 1, very kind of quite interestingly comparable and good friends as well.
But there's things that he does really well that I'm, like, I need to push myself to still be competitive that way, and I'm sure he looks at my game and thinks there's things that he needs to do so sort of compete with me. Sergio as well. We're sort of all, like, around 1980. I think Sergio still plays good golf. Obviously, not seeing as much of him anymore to really kind of go head-to-head. But, yeah, I think we're the three players that have kind of kept the form -- in terms of just being out on TOUR and competing and popping our names up on the leaderboard once in a while, we're probably the guys doing well at that.
Q. In what ways are you maybe better now than you were in your 20s?
JUSTIN ROSE: I mean, it's a good question. I would say generally I've putted the ball better in the last five or six years than did I throughout my 20s and 30s. I was an elite ball-striker, I think, for a long, long, long, long time and -- but if I putted it as I do now back then, I would have probably done a lot of damage. But that's been an element of my game I've had to figure out. And like anything, the ball striking hasn't quite been as good, but it's nice to know that I have access to it all. It's just finding -- putting it all together on the right week.
Q. Can I ask you your thoughts on Oakmont? You played it, obviously, in the U.S. Open. It's got such a great, you know, hard reputation. Does it live up to it? Do you recall the first time you visited?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I just remember sort of expecting, you know, with the name Oakmont oak trees, and I was expecting more of a tree-lined golf course, and I was just like staggered by a sea of green grass. I was like, Whoa. It's tough, for sure. From my point of view, I think I've got to approach it with the -- I put a mini driver in the bag this week with the premise of I think I need to hit it in play at the U.S. Open. I think there's still the guys who hit it far enough can still be very aggressive off the tee. That doesn't really suit me, I don't hit it quite far enough to justify being in the rough. So, yeah, I think from the way I'm going to try and play the golf course it's definitely, you got to be somewhat long off the tee, 280 to 320, you got to hit it in that zip code, but you got to put it in play. So that's my recollections of it. You can't play that golf course from the rough as you can't play this week from the rough.
Q. When you hear from people about the Masters, does that make it, I don't know, soften the blow of not having won or does it fuel you to go, Oh, that was nice that they're congratulating me for that.
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think selfishly they enjoyed it, because someone kind of was there to step up and have a good round and make it interesting. So I think from a watching point of view -- which I haven't had a chance to watch it back, apparently it was a good watch -- I think people were just grateful that it was exciting in the end. I think that that's what people kind of enjoyed. Yeah, so from my point of view, yeah, I think I'll look back at it always with where there were a couple of opportunities, but Rory gave me a huge opportunity as well. You know, there's no way I should be in a playoff when he's in the middle of the fairway on 18. I stepped up and hit great, hit the, hit every bit of good golf shots as I could hit in the moment. I think I learned a lot from 2017 when I was in a similar situation. So, yeah, from that point of view I can walk away from it a lot easier than if I had done something in the moment where I knew I had let myself down.
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