Rose prepares for tour battle at HK kickoff

GOLF’S world number six ix Justin Rose said ice baths hs and a team of fitness experts ts helped him keep up his ennergy last season, as he eyes es a fast start to the new Euroopean Tour in Hong Kong.

Rose takes his place among ng Europe’s top golfers at the he Hong Kong Open Thursday ay just days after the 2017 cirircuit finished.

His unflagging energy saw aw him win tournaments in Chihina and Turkey in the space ce of a month before narrowly wly missing out at the seasonal al finale in Dubai last weekend. d.

“Today is my offseason!” n!” joked a bleary-eyed Rose (pictured,

AFP) on

T u e s d a y , hours after flying in from the

Middle

East. “I take the day off today and then we get going again tomorrow.

“I’ll definitely do [ice baths], a lot of contrast – hot-cold stuff. I’ll do that pre- Justin round, times.

“I track my heart ra rate variability every day to g get a bit of a snapshot of how h my body is coping wi with time changes, and jet l lag. If I need to focus on recovery r I will. If I need to focus fo on fitness I will.”

It is a punishing schedule for today’s golfers, who jet back an and forth across time zo zones for tournaments while keeping the their bodies in a peak athletic condition th that has become esse essential in post-round some- the modern game.

And as events such as the Asian Tour’s historic Hong Kong Open are added to the European Tour’s winter schedule as jointly sanctioned competitions, the season’s start has shifted earlier and earlier.

The Englishman’s next stop is the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas next Thursday, a tournament run by the Tiger Woods Foundation which is expected to see the hotly-anticipated return of its namesake golfing superstar.

“The sooner you can win in a tour season the better,” Rose told AFP.

“The way I look at it, it counts for the 2018 season but also calendar-year wise it affords you the opportunity to go into Christmas and the New Year with some momentum.”

Other European stars have taken a marginally more restful approach.

Both Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson, previous Tour winners, sat out the Dubai finale last weekend after opting not to rush back from injuries in favour of a brief winter break.