Dad gave his all but it wasn’t good enough
JUSTIN ROSE says an off-the-cuff comment from his eight-year-old son has helped him deal with the anguish of missing out on a first victory at Augusta.
Rose was collecting his son Leo from football practice when the youngster revealed he had told one of his mates what really happened to his dad 12 months ago at Augusta, when he lost the first extra play-off hole to Sergio Garcia. “What Leo said to me that day did help me come to terms with it,” said Rose. “He said to one of his friends at football that Sergio won the Masters fair and square.
“So it was a bit of a case of I shouldn’t be beating myself up about it because even Leo could see I didn’t do anything wrong. There was a minute
in the aftermath when it was hard but I never woke up thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve lost the Masters’. When I thought about it, of course I did feel it was a shame. But I never woke up with a hole in my heart. “It does make me wonder if Leo would say the same about himself if he was in a similar position, because Leo’s just ferociously competitive. “It was interesting to hear him show empathy because when things don’t go his way – especially at football – I’m not sure he would show quite the same emotion. But it was nice to see he has that in him.”
In the ensuing 51 weeks Rose has been complimented on his grace and decorum in the manner in which he handled defeat and that was no more evident than at the Green Jacket presentation ceremony. “Look, it was really, really painful but at the same time I had this overriding feeling that you can’t go through your career without a bit of heartache,” said Rose.
“You can’t be on the leaderboards at big tournaments all the time and have things go your way all the time.
“This was the first time it had gone against me and I know Sergio had suffered that many times. So I feel it was just his time.”