AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Justin Rose kept hitting balls to stay loose at the tournament practice facility, all alone save for longtime caddie Mark Fulcher, everything eerily quiet around him while drama was unfolding elsewhere
Rose had generated roars of his own down the stretch , the biggest of all coming , when he rolled in a 20-footer for birdie and then looked to the heavens. It finished off a round of 66, and pulled him into a tie with Rory McIlroy at 11 under, and ultimately sent Rose off to prepare for the possibility of a playoff.
He got it when McIlroy missed a putt on the 18th hole some 40 minutes later.
The two headed back to the 18 for a sudden-death showdown. Rose striped a drive down the right side, McIlroy matched him down the middle. Rose knocked his approach to 15 feet, McIlroy stuck to 3 feet. But when Rose slid his birdie putt past, and McIlroy drained his own, he finally had the one leg of the grand slam that had so long eluded him.
And once again, Rose had been denied in a playoff at Augusta National. The former U.S. Open and Olympic champion was part of the last one in the Masters, eight years ago, when he lost to Sergio Garcia on the first sudden-death hole.
“This is a historic moment in golf, isn’t it? Someone who achieves the career grand slam,” Rose said afterward, magnanimous in defeat. “I wanted to be the bad guy today, but still, it’s a momentous occasion for the game of golf.”
Meanwhile, it also was Rose’s second straight second-place finish in a major. He was tied for second after the second round of the British Open last year, and he wound up finishing right there, two shots behind Xander Schauffele at Royal Troon.
“I hit a lot of quality shots under pressure, and I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger as the round was going on,” Rose said. “I felt so good with my game, good with my emotions, and I’m super proud of that. Because you can’t prepare for that. You can’t practice for that. That’s when you learn about yourself, and I’m still learning about myself.”
The fact that the 44-year-old Rose was even in contention Sunday was a testament to his stubborn refusal to quit.
He held the first-round lead after a superlative 65 on Thursday, and again after his second-round 71. But when Rose shot 75 on Saturday, and McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau made big charges, he came into Sunday as an afterthought.
“I think I flipped the switch from yesterday,” Rose said. “Yesterday, I was so angry coming off the course because I turned 69 into 75. I didn’t let that momentum seep into today. And I think that that was, from a professionalism point of view — very, very proud of that switch overnight and into this morning.”
Still, Rose began the day seven shots behind McIlroy with a bunch of golf’s best standing between them.
Things weren’t much better through six, either, which he played in even-par. But back-to-back birdies at Nos. 7 and 8 gave Rose a confidence boost, and three straight birdies while McIlroy was faltering on the back nine thrust him back into the mix.
“I wasn’t looking at leaderboards,” Rose said. “The only way I sensed I was getting into it was the crowd.”
Even when Rose bogeyed the 14th from behind a tree, he bounced back with two more birdies. And when a bogey at the 17th left him needing one more, Rose delivered it at the 18th to reach 11 under — same as McIlroy playing four groups behind.
“It’s the kind of putt you dream about as kid,” Rose said, “and to have it and hole it, it was a special feeling.”
As the sunlight faded over the Georgia pines, Rose and McIlroy — close friends and Ryder Cup teammates — returned to the 18th tee. They shook hands, then both of them played one of the most difficult holes on the course splendidly.
Only one of them was able to make the putt that mattered.
“Unfortunately, the playoff, they always end so quickly,” Rose said. “If you’re not the guy to hit the great shot or hole the great putt, it’s over. But that’s the nature of sudden death. I’m not sure I could have done much more today.”
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