Rose rises to occasion
On a day where most struggle, Englishman fires 7-under 65 to lead by 4
With each description from the world’s best players about the beastliness of Augusta National on Thursday — its firmness, its fastness, its fickle wind — Justin Rose’s round gained more shine as it went along. It kept shining through the afternoon until it had to register as one of the prettiest rounds ever seen at a Masters, given the conditions.
His 7-under 65 for a fourshot lead came on a day when almost everybody played defense and nobody figured to do anything luminous, but then here came the 40-year-old Rose with a 10-hole stretch right out of a dream. From No. 8 to No. 17, he packed an eagle, seven birdies and two pars. When he finished, he almost matched the fiveshot lead Craig Wood had after Thursday at the 1941 Masters (which Wood won eventually), a first-round lead never since equaled.
Rose settled for a par on No. 18, and remained four shots ahead of Hideki Matsuyama and Brian Harman, five ahead of Webb Simpson, Patrick Reed and youngsters Will Zalatoris and Christiaan Bezuidenhout.
Yet even with that mere closing par, the 2013 U.S. Open champion had the best of his 59 Masters rounds and maybe the best from among his 71 major tournaments. They always say you can’t win the Masters on Thursday, but apparently you sure can try.
“I putted the ball beautifully and read the greens unbelievably well,” Rose told reporters in Augusta, Ga., after the first day of his 16th Masters across 18 years. “If you had said to me walking up the eighth hole, I’d have said I had no chance [at a 65], this course is playing a little too tricky for that. But it’s incredible. It’s a good reminder that you just never know what can happen out there, just to stick with it on the golf course.”
Long since hurrying to visibility at age 17 as an amateur in the 1998 Open Championship, Rose has been around long enough that he has held three other first-round Masters leads: in 2004 alone, in 2007 in a tie with Brett Wetterich, and in 2008 in a tie with eventual champion Trevor Immelman. He dueled Sergio Garcia on the Sunday of the 2017 Masters before succumbing on the first hole of a playoff when Rose got stuck behind a magnolia, as can happen. Yet he has never led in the manner in which he led after the 65, after a stretch that in ways soared more than his 2013 U.S. Open title at Merion near Philadelphia.
He reached No. 8 at 2 over par, yearning in the muddle with the others. His year had been crummy. His ranking had slipped to No. 41. His previous event had been the Arnold Palmer in Orlando, Fla., in March, and his back forced him to withdraw from that. Then he knocked it from 273 yards to nine feet to eagle, from 147 to four feet to birdie No. 9, from 191 to 26 feet to birdie No. 10, to six feet to birdie the par-3 No. 12, from 68 feet to three feet to birdie the par-5 No. 13, from the sand to six feet to birdie the par-5 No. 15, to 14 feet to birdie the par-3 No. 16, and from 148 yards to five feet to birdie the par-4 No. 17.
“I knew 2 over through 7 is not the end of the world,” Rose said, “but also knew you’re going in the wrong direction . . . So obviously the eagle, boom, straight back in there, and I guess almost just piggybacking with a birdie straightaway at No. 9, suddenly I turned in 1 under, and I could fee like I could actually leave the front nine as a job well done and kind of move on to the back nine and build a score.”
So he went from a job well done to a job spectacularly done, and as he went along, the words of his competitors served as meaningful background music telling of the hardness for all but one as the Masters reassembled five months after its rare autumn turn of last November.
Dustin Johnson, who won that event at 20 under par last November and shot 2-over-par 74 with a closing double-bogey Thursday, told reporters in Augusta he found the course “playing definitely a lot tougher just because, when the greens are firm and fast here, the golf course plays difficult. Then you add the wind in today, it made it play really difficult.”
Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, told reporters, “Yeah, I’ll definitely accept a 2-under par round,” which he did produce. Si Woo Kim, who shot a commendable 1-underpar 71, said, “It’s really different (from) five months ago.”