Sunday
Sep182011
'In control' Rose triumphs at Cog Hill
Sunday, September 18, 2011 at 1:51PM
Writing from Lemont, Illinois
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Even in a golf tournament that is effectively a wire-to-wire victory, there is a moment when the eventual winner has to perform, a time when a shot absolutely has to be made.
For Justin Rose, that moment came Sunday at 4:45 p.m. The leader or co-leader since hostilities commenced on Thursday, he had hit his second shot on the par-4 17th hole just short of the green. The holder of a five-stroke lead on steady Australian John Senden earlier in the round, Rose, an Englishman born in South Africa, now led by only a stroke.
He was 12 yards from the cup, sitting firmly on the fairway, and was mulling pulling his putter from the bag.
“The chicken stick,” he called it. “I had a little chat with myself. I was very aware, very conscious, these are the moments when tournaments are won.”
Rose and caddie Mark Fulcher conferred.
“I said, ‘What do you like?’ and he said, ‘I see a 54 (degree wedge) landing on the green, a bit of check, then releasing.’ Had he said putter, I would have putted it, so he gets kudos there for sure.”
Rose’s chip played out the way Fulcher envisioned, with a bonus. It dropped into the cup for a birdie 3, and a two-stroke lead that allowed Rose to play Dubsdread’s treacherous 18th hole the way he preferred, while Senden, now two back, had to press.
Both parred the last, and Rose, with an even-par 71 on the softest of days, totaled 13-under-par 271 and captured the 108th Western Open, marqueed for the fifth time as the BMW Championship, by two strokes at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club. Senden finished with a 69 for 11-under 273, with Geoff Ogilvy third at 274 via a 69. That trio was out of the Tour Championship picture entering the week, and now are headed to Atlanta. But the Western was decided on Dubsdread’s penultimate test.
“You can boil the whole day down to that hole,” Rose said of the 17th.
Senden also thought so.
“It was a beautiful shot that he hit,” Senden said. “He left the ball in the correct spot if he missed (the second shot) under the circumstances. It was a great shot under pressure.”
Senden had tried to apply pressure, but made only a pair of birdies, on the ninth and 10th holes, amid a sea of pars on a day where it drizzled, then rained, then poured, then stopped, with the wind only a rumor. He hit 15 greens in regulation, but his only other one-putt greens besides the birdie holes produced a trio of par saves.
“I focused on my game; on putting well and getting the ball in the hole,” Senden said. “I really wanted to catch him and win the golf tournament.”
He trailed by five after Rose’s brace of birdies on the sixth and seventh holes, but began to trim the lead on the ninth with his 16-foot birdie putt and Rose’s bogey 6. The lead was three.
From there until his tee shot on the 16th, Rose would hit only one fairway. Bugged by the changing conditions, he was changing jackets, pullovers, everything but his shoes while trying to keep the ball in play.
Senden’s deficit was two strokes when he dropped a 43-footer for a 3 on the 10th hole. Rose’s bogey on the par-5 15th, when his tee shot came close to going out of bounds to the right, made it a one-stroke margin. Suddenly, the pressure was on.
Rose had been there before. He’d won last year’s AT&T National when leading after three rounds, and six PGA Tour or European Tour tournaments in all. He knew how to finish.
“In terms of my hands and my feel and my heart rate, I felt absolutely 100 percent in control today,” Rose said. “Never felt uncomfortable, didn’t feel nervous on the first tee, felt like I had my game. All week, actually, and I think that’s a calmness more than anything.
“I practice closing. Every Sunday when I’m not in contention, I practice it. I practice doing the right things, having the right mindset. I think it’s very difficult just to expect to have it when you’re in contention and when you’re in the lead.”
The payoff came even before Sunday, he said.
“I’ve improved my position with my final round most of the time,” Rose said. “I think I’m 15th in scoring average on Sunday.”
He was first in scoring average this week starting with Thursday’s 8-under-par 63. Mark Wilson tied him at 11-under 131 after 36 holes, but Saturday’s 2-under 69 put him four shots clear of the field coming into the final 18 holes.
“Mentally this is the best I’ve ever been in being under control,” Rose said.
And at the best possible time. By winning, Rose not only collects $1.44 million, he moved from 34th to third in the PGA Tour’s playoff point system, so not only played his way into next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, but can win the FedEx Cup and the $10 million that goes with it by winning where Bobby Jones grew up.
“To give myself control of my own destiny next week is something I didn’t foresee at the beginning of the week,” Rose said. “An amazing outcome.”
– Tim Cronin
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Even in a golf tournament that is effectively a wire-to-wire victory, there is a moment when the eventual winner has to perform, a time when a shot absolutely has to be made.
For Justin Rose, that moment came Sunday at 4:45 p.m. The leader or co-leader since hostilities commenced on Thursday, he had hit his second shot on the par-4 17th hole just short of the green. The holder of a five-stroke lead on steady Australian John Senden earlier in the round, Rose, an Englishman born in South Africa, now led by only a stroke.
He was 12 yards from the cup, sitting firmly on the fairway, and was mulling pulling his putter from the bag.
“The chicken stick,” he called it. “I had a little chat with myself. I was very aware, very conscious, these are the moments when tournaments are won.”
Rose and caddie Mark Fulcher conferred.
“I said, ‘What do you like?’ and he said, ‘I see a 54 (degree wedge) landing on the green, a bit of check, then releasing.’ Had he said putter, I would have putted it, so he gets kudos there for sure.”
Rose’s chip played out the way Fulcher envisioned, with a bonus. It dropped into the cup for a birdie 3, and a two-stroke lead that allowed Rose to play Dubsdread’s treacherous 18th hole the way he preferred, while Senden, now two back, had to press.
Both parred the last, and Rose, with an even-par 71 on the softest of days, totaled 13-under-par 271 and captured the 108th Western Open, marqueed for the fifth time as the BMW Championship, by two strokes at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club. Senden finished with a 69 for 11-under 273, with Geoff Ogilvy third at 274 via a 69. That trio was out of the Tour Championship picture entering the week, and now are headed to Atlanta. But the Western was decided on Dubsdread’s penultimate test.
“You can boil the whole day down to that hole,” Rose said of the 17th.
Senden also thought so.
“It was a beautiful shot that he hit,” Senden said. “He left the ball in the correct spot if he missed (the second shot) under the circumstances. It was a great shot under pressure.”
Senden had tried to apply pressure, but made only a pair of birdies, on the ninth and 10th holes, amid a sea of pars on a day where it drizzled, then rained, then poured, then stopped, with the wind only a rumor. He hit 15 greens in regulation, but his only other one-putt greens besides the birdie holes produced a trio of par saves.
“I focused on my game; on putting well and getting the ball in the hole,” Senden said. “I really wanted to catch him and win the golf tournament.”
He trailed by five after Rose’s brace of birdies on the sixth and seventh holes, but began to trim the lead on the ninth with his 16-foot birdie putt and Rose’s bogey 6. The lead was three.
From there until his tee shot on the 16th, Rose would hit only one fairway. Bugged by the changing conditions, he was changing jackets, pullovers, everything but his shoes while trying to keep the ball in play.
Senden’s deficit was two strokes when he dropped a 43-footer for a 3 on the 10th hole. Rose’s bogey on the par-5 15th, when his tee shot came close to going out of bounds to the right, made it a one-stroke margin. Suddenly, the pressure was on.
Rose had been there before. He’d won last year’s AT&T National when leading after three rounds, and six PGA Tour or European Tour tournaments in all. He knew how to finish.
“In terms of my hands and my feel and my heart rate, I felt absolutely 100 percent in control today,” Rose said. “Never felt uncomfortable, didn’t feel nervous on the first tee, felt like I had my game. All week, actually, and I think that’s a calmness more than anything.
“I practice closing. Every Sunday when I’m not in contention, I practice it. I practice doing the right things, having the right mindset. I think it’s very difficult just to expect to have it when you’re in contention and when you’re in the lead.”
The payoff came even before Sunday, he said.
“I’ve improved my position with my final round most of the time,” Rose said. “I think I’m 15th in scoring average on Sunday.”
He was first in scoring average this week starting with Thursday’s 8-under-par 63. Mark Wilson tied him at 11-under 131 after 36 holes, but Saturday’s 2-under 69 put him four shots clear of the field coming into the final 18 holes.
“Mentally this is the best I’ve ever been in being under control,” Rose said.
And at the best possible time. By winning, Rose not only collects $1.44 million, he moved from 34th to third in the PGA Tour’s playoff point system, so not only played his way into next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, but can win the FedEx Cup and the $10 million that goes with it by winning where Bobby Jones grew up.
“To give myself control of my own destiny next week is something I didn’t foresee at the beginning of the week,” Rose said. “An amazing outcome.”
– Tim Cronin
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