Justin Rose leads the Masters, proving to himself that he can still compete at age 44

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AUGUSTA, Ga. — Justin Rose foreshadowed this Masters.

It was mid-afternoon on Saturday at the 2024 PGA Championship when Rose sat down before the media and made it all make sense. The Englishman, now 44 years old, let his inner workings pour out: “What’s motivating me to stick with it and keep working hard is to try to give myself like the Indian summer of my career, try to steal one of these to really make it a fantastic career,” he said at Valhalla Country Club during the second major of the season.

Rose, the first-round leader at the 2025 Masters, is here because he isn’t desperate for a career-defining moment — he’s thankful for the opportunity to snag another.

Rose had the manual leaderboard operators at Augusta National working overtime as he made birdie after birdie on Thursday in his 20th Masters. He shot a 7-under 65 to tie his career low at the tournament with only one blemish on his scorecard, on No. 18. With three consecutive birdies to open a front-nine 31, followed by a 2-under 34 on the back, Rose will have a three-shot lead heading into the second round.

“I played a lot of golf here at Augusta National. So to come away with my equal best score is certainly an achievement for me,” he said.

Rose’s vision is unfolding. It has been for some time.

You can pin it on a few different, but equally valuable moments. There was that PGA Championship, where Rose ultimately finished T6, but impressed himself with the performance, particularly after a third-round 64. On a golf course handcrafted for the bomb-and-gougers, Rose, No. 89 in driving distance on the PGA Tour, fared unexpectedly well by his standards. Then you have The Open at Royal Troon, where Rose emerged as the lone contender to come out of the wrong side of the weather draw. He fell to Xander Schauffele by two shots, and that one stung. Rewind to Marco Simone — the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome where Rose was the elder statesman but became a main character, scoring 1 ½ points for Team Europe.

Rose’s spurts of late-career success became fuel. He used those weeks as information.

“Again, more evidence that when the big stage is there, I can kind of bring my game and still compete with the best players in the world,” he said, “If you know that in your head, that gives you the motivation to then still work hard.”

It’s that well-informed preparation that allowed Rose to tally only 25 putts on Thursday, shooting 65 by hitting nine fairways and 14 greens. When Rose wasn’t drilling birdies from long range, he was saving par from jail.

On the par-4 17th, Rose’s drive found the pine straw on the right-hand side of the fairway, nestling directly behind two Georgia pines, about 8 yards apart. He walked up and briefly surveyed the gap that framed the shot ahead but then turned his gaze to the left, perhaps favoring a chip-out — the safer and less aggressive option. But with a short iron in hand, Rose set up to the ball and aimed approximately one yard left of the left-sided tree. As his escape shot came off the clubface, it was immediately apparent: This wasn’t a punch-out at all.

The ball soared high into the air and took a 45-degree right turn, slicing around the limbs, much to the amusement of the patrons that had gathered tightly around him to catch a glimpse. From there, all Rose needed was a routine up-and-down to secure the par.

He has only made the cut in four of the last eight majors, but when Rose is on, he takes full advantage. He’s playing with a mindset that allows him to do that, perhaps with more ease than his counterparts, most of whom precede him by one, if not two, decades. The average age of the other nine players on the first page of the leaderboard is 30.5. That includes his 25-year-old Ryder Cup teammate Ludvig Åberg and a 23-year-old Akshay Bhatia. Rose has had to make some adjustments as he ages, curtailing temptations to chase driving distance in favor of a fairway-finder approach. He referenced Collin Morikawas as his inspiration in that department.

“Of course, I’m 44. Golf is not going to get easier for me in the next five, 10 years, whatever it’s going to be,” Rose said. “So your opportunity is less going forward. So you have to make the most of it.”

Rose, right, has a three-shot lead on the field at the Masters. (Andrew Redington / Getty Images)

Rose still feels the internal push to do things like model parts of his game after a 28-year-old with two majors because he sees the glaring holes. He knows he’s done enough, but not all of it. The narratives are all there for him, but they could be different — they could include more. Rose doesn’t care to hide the fact that he’s perfectly aware of where he stands in the history of the game.

“I think my résumé is nicely rounded out. There’s a few big glaring gaps. Obviously three major championships I haven’t won. Maybe a Players Championship as well,” Rose said. “So there’s tons of opportunity to do things I haven’t done before, but the major headlines are kind of all in place for me. So I should use that as freedom to take these opportunities and use them as a kind of freewheel and use it all as upside.”

Rose believes that at various points in his career, he has played well enough at Augusta National to come home with a green jacket. It just hasn’t worked out that way. In 2015, he tied for second, and in 2017, he lost a playoff to Sergio Garcia. To this day, he distills that loss down to “Lady Luck.”

But in his 20 years coming back to this tournament, Rose’s chances to go on and convert for a win haven’t had an energy quite like the one that permeated the property on Thursday afternoon. Rose knows he can do it, but no one expects him to. And that’s exactly what makes it feel possible.

(Top photo: Andrew Redington / Getty Images)

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