Disappearing act from drenched Rose after horror shank at ninth
IT MIGHT have been Dr Jenkins in the monthly medal rather than Mr Justin Rose, sometime the No 1-ranked golfer in the world, as the ocean fell out of the sky at Royal Portrush. The drenched course was making an amateur hacker out of the millionaire Englishman and nowhere was this humiliation more painful to witness than when he played his third shot on the ninth. As the 30mph wind
was blasting from the southwest and the rain lashing horizontally, he chipped back on to the fairway after an errant tee shot, then produced the nadir of a geometry-defying shank. TV cameras were so baffled by this impersonation of a high-handicapper that they
missed the ball’s trajectory — straight right — altogether. Rose threw down his club and turned his back, grateful no doubt for the small mercy that he wasn’t up on a manslaughter charge. He was on his sad way to finishing eight-over for the day, leaving him 16 shots off the summit. So disappointed was Rose by his day’s work that, while we journalists waited for his thoughts on the debacle, he was seen stomping as fast as he could in the opposite direction from the cabin where his press conference was due to take place. Word was conveyed to us that he had politely declined to attend. As one sharptongued member of our inky tribe said: ‘Well, as long as he did it politely.’ There may be too much prattle in sport these days, but refusing to talk because you’ve fluffed a well-remunerated round of
golf is not an impressive look. Rose’s no-show followed his understandable grump these last few days over the condensed major scheduling that now sees all four events staged in as many months. He chose not to play for a month to give himself the best chance of adding to the solitary US Open he won at Merion six years ago. An eagle-birdie burst on Saturday raised his hopes, but from the start yesterday he was struggling. In the company of Rickie Fowler, Rose dropped his first shot at the third. Bogeys followed at the sixth and eighth, and then that horror off the hosel at the ninth for double bogey. Although he rallied with his only birdie at the 12th, the die was cast. Dropped shots at the 13th, 15th and 17th followed. It was more than Dr Jenkins could stomach. And off he went, biting his tongue.