From the European Tour website and Year Book

Would Ken Rose be inordinately proud of his lad?

You bet your bottom Euro he would!

By BILL ELLIOTT
The Observer
In the end the biggest victory of Justin Rose’s professional life was a mirror image of everything that had gone before. Inordinately talented as a golfer and blessed with a temperament that embraces tranquillity when all around him are in danger of losing focus, Rose has had much to endure as well as to enjoy since turning professional on his 18th birthday in the high summer of 1998.
Since then it has been a long and winding road to his present position as the winner of The 2007 European Tour Order of Merit. His victory at Club de Golf Valderrama in the season-climaxing Volvo Masters was a high-flying yet stumbling affair. His final nine holes over Don Jaime Ortiz-Patiño’s Spanish masterpiece suggested at times a young man losing his nerve just when he needed it most.
There was little time for regrets, however, as the game which had taken him into a four stroke lead with victory apparently his, began to slide away alarmingly. That he regrouped, recovered and ultimately won a play-off against compatriot Simon Dyson and Søren Kjeldsen of Denmark clearly marked him out as a player of sublime promise. But then, his working life has been a potpourri of achievement and setback.
To uncork the centre of this golfer we must return to that summer of 1998. He entered The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale as an amateur and surfed into town on the wrong end of a bitterly disappointing month for he had failed to win The Amateur Championship he coveted so much.
Beside him, as he confirmed his name on the registration list for the greatest tournament of them all, was his father Ken. It was he who had nurtured and encouraged his son as a golfer. Not cajoled, mind you, for here was a father determined that his son would grow his talent only if he really wanted to. Ken Rose saw himself as a facilitator. He protected his boy as much as he exposed him to the high risk that is playing a game for a living.
Born in Johannesburg before his family returned to England, Justin grew up in the middle of a golf obsession. By the time he was 12 years old he knew he was good. By the time he was 17 he knew he wanted to play professionally. But by the time he arrived at Royal Birkdale in 1998, however, he had no clue what was about to happen.
What happened, of course, was that he finished a tempestuous week in a share of fourth place, a final, holed pitch shot echoing around the sporting world like a trumpet call announcing the arrival of someone special. Of course, just when it seems as good as it can be, it tends to turn an awful lot worse.
Ushered onto the European circuit with every media gun blazing, Rose fell spectacularly from grace, missing 21 cuts in succession. Only in his case this difficult period was made much harder to bear because, while other rookies were floundering anonymously, his low points were magnified by high publicity. Eighteen months after he had strode so hopefully into the limelight, he was just another jittery kid on the Challenge Tour.
It was at one of these events in 1999 that your correspondent bumped into him. After chatting for a spell he departed with the phrase which now resonates hugely: “Don’t worry about me. I believe in my ability to play this game. I’ll be okay. I’ll make it one day.”
Now he has. Sadly his father is not around to witness his coronation as Number One in Europe for Ken died from cancer in 2002, leaving a void in the Rose family life that can never be filled. It was touching to hear Justin say, as he cradled the Harry Vardon Trophy in Spain, that he thought his dad would be proud of him.
There is no doubt, however, that the hard times have helped this golfer develop. The amateur who wowed us in 1998 is now a seasoned player, the optimism of youth has been replaced by a steelier determination and a veneer of ambition that is as closely and realistically focused as it once was dreamy. The boy is now a proper man.
“It’s been a long trip since 1998,” he said. “It’s had its moments when it’s been tough. Missing all those cuts, losing my dad, just growing up really. It has toughened me up and made me appreciative of the good times. It’s taught me also that you’ve got to work hard, got to dedicate yourself. Dad’s passing put a lot of things into perspective for me as did getting married last year. Golf is what I do, means a lot to me. It’s what I am, but it is not who I am.”
His confidence, meanwhile, soared on the back of a simplified swing technique. Few things in sport are more boring than the concept of a swing technique but, in layman’s terms, the simpler it is, the better it is and it is better because, when the big moments arrive and every nerve end jangles, a player has to know he can trust his body to do the right things. Often in sport, a blank mind is a good mind and it is this thoughtless state that Rose is now embracing more often.
He switched coaches last summer from David Leadbetter to the lesser-known Nick Bradley who, interestingly, learned his coaching skills from, yes, Leadbetter. “Before Nick, I was expending my energy on things that weren’t bearing fruit,” he said. “Nick simplifies things and when things are simple they’re easier to trust and to replicate. Maybe before I’d been trying to get too perfect.”
Well, maybe, but if it works for him then fine and the detail since tends to show it has indeed been a good move. Leadbetter had been coaching him for several years and sometimes, merely a change of emphasis is what works for men who are forever tinkering here and fine-tuning there. In professional golf the illusion of movement is often as important as the reality of any perceived progress.
He now believes his strength is that he does not really have a weakness, his chipping and putting are as sound as his tee shots and his approach shots are considered. He also enjoys a champion’s ability to exist in the moment, to shut out all that is going on and to concentrate instead on the job in hand. This sounds easy but it is the hardest bit of all to achieve. His coach’s interest in meditation and a relevant spirituality undoubtedly has helped. It does not matter how you cope, it just matters that you do.
Before he won the Volvo Masters, Rose already had secured the Order of Merit by virtue of a guaranteed top three place in Spain but it then became even more significant that he should succeed in the three man play-off. By doing so he not only capped a stellar year with winnings of €2,944,945, he also held off the circling vultures of doubt that suggested he was a top ten golfer any week, but not enough of a winner.
That may seem harsh but it is the reality of this perverse game. No-one doubted Rose’s ability but too often, when push came to back nine, he stuttered slightly. As Jack Nicklaus pointed out all those years ago: “Playing terrific golf is one thing, winning titles is another.”
He had begun his 2007 European season 50 weeks earlier when he won the MasterCard Masters in Australia but to end it the way he did removed any doubt and he may now properly savour a year that also saw him finish second only to Tiger Woods in the four Major Championships in terms of scoring aggregates – he was tied fifth in the Masters Tournament, tied tenth in the US Open Championship, tied 12th in The Open Championship and tied 12th in the US PGA Championship – as well as so nearly lifting Europe’s own BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club in May.
For Justin Rose, his golfing career will no doubt be a continuing rollercoaster but the likelihood now is that it will be much more roller than coaster. Ahead, there are more Major Championships to contend, most likely Ryder Cups to embroider and much else to anticipate. Beside him will be his family and his wife Kate who has done so much to barricade him against the bad moments. Together they form a seriously class act.
Would Ken Rose be inordinately proud of his lad? You bet your bottom euro he would!
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This chapter was reproduced from The 2007 European Tour Yearbook, which can be ordered through the European Tour Shop by clicking here