Tennis icon inspiring Justin Rose to buck trend as he defies kick in the goolies
Evergreen English star back in the mood after Masters misery
Flying Justin Rose has named Steve Stricker and Novak Djokovic as inspirations as he continues to buck the trends.
The English star refuses to let age be a barrier and recovered from being 'kicked in the goolies' to post a brilliant second-round at The Memorial.
Second at the Masters behind Rory McIlroy, Rose has finished runner-up in two of the last three Majors and remains a threat at the highest level with another Ryder Cup appearance looming in September.
The 44-year-old is in contention at the tournament where he won his first-ever PGA title 15 years ago and his longevity in inspired by stars both in and out of his own sport.
Rose revealed: 'I'm getting to that stage in my career where that is the goal now, sort of having pride in performance and trying to buck the trend of what is a natural kind of ageing process. There are things that are more difficult or get more difficult, but you don't want to kind of believe it. I still think my good is good, which is what I've seen this year and that's the most important thing to see. I'd rather that than the top 20th every week, just to know that if I do put things together, I'm capable of winning. I still believe that.
'Steve Stricker is a really nice example. I think he won maybe nine times in his 40s. And 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 role model from that point of view. If you could have a career like his in his 40s, think that's what I would say is doable, aspirational. If you choose to kind of go all in, there's other things in your life that suffer, right? So it just depends on the balance of that.
'But in other sports, obviously, Djokovic clearly is sort of the one pushing greatness in a sport where you do wear out pretty quick.
'Adam [Scott] is 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 and good friends as well. 'There's things that he does really well that I need to push myself to still be competitive that way. I'm sure he looks at my game and thinks there's things that he needs to do to sort of compete with me.
'Sergio [Garcia] as well. We're sort of all like around 1980. We're the three players that have kind of kept the form and popping our names up on the leaderboard once in a while.
'I've been on tour over here since 2003. So there was seven years before breaking through. Now 15 years since. It's quite amazing when I think about it like that. The image I have is my little son Leo was kind of messing around in a bunker behind 18. I mean, now you lose him in these bunkers! But back then, you could still see him!'
Rose carded six-under on Friday to show he's over a Masters hangover having lost the play-off to McIlroy and pulling out of the Truist with illness.
He said: 'I was just sick there. The man flu. A sniffle. I was already seven over par and I was conscious that PGA was coming up the following week. PGA just was not out the gates and then obviously I felt like [Thursday] I was two under par through eight holes. I really prepared well this week and coming into this week, so was a real kick in the goolies. The PGA Championship was super disappointing, so delighted to have kind of gotten myself back into the tournament.'
Asked about a Masters hangover he added: 'Not consciously. Quite possibly. There is stuff to process there and I think obviously a lot of people want to keep talking to you about it. It's just hard to put it 100 per cent 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.
'So it's probably taking me a little bit of time just to really find that form again, I suppose. Traveling back and forth from England, this year I've 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, It's definitely a balance.'
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