October 11, 2007
HSBC World Matchplay Championship
September 8, 2007
September 7, 2007
September 7, 2007
September 1, 2007
August 24, 2007
Justin Peter Rose (born 30 July 1980) is an English
professional golfer.
Rose was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and
moved to the United Kingdom at the age of five.
Rose burst to prominence at The Open Championship in
1998. As a seventeen year old amateur he holed a
dramatic shot from the rough for birdie on the 18th
to finish tied for fourth. He turned professional
the following week, but initially struggled badly,
missing 21 cuts in a row.
Rose's career soon began to take off, however, and
he became established on the European Tour. He won
his first professional event, the Dunhill
Championship in South Africa, in 2002, and followed
this up with three further victories in that year.
In 2003, he reached number 33 in the Official World
Golf Rankings. In 2004, he played mainly in America
on the PGA Tour, while also maintaining his
membership of the European Tour. He did not have a
good year, and slipped out of the top 50 in the
world rankings.
His ranking continued to fall in early 2005, and in
March he announced that he was quitting the European
Tour and concentrating on playing in the U.S. This
had no apparent effect on his poor form, and by the
middle of the year he had fallen out of the World
Top 100. In August of that year he made an about
face by announcing his intention to return to the
European Tour. Ironically later the same week he had
his best result of the year, leading the Buick
Championship after three rounds before slipping to a
third place finish. One or two further good results
followed late in the 2005 season, and he stayed on
the PGA Tour after all.
In September 2006 at the Canadian Open, Rose led a
PGA Tour tournament going into the final round for
the first time. But slipped up with a final round 74
which moved him down the field. He went on to finish
2nd at the Disney Resort tournament and finished
47th on the money list with US$1.629 million in
prize money. In November 2006 he won the Australian
Masters, to claim his first title for four years.
His renewed consistency, including a top 5 finish at
the 2007 Masters has seen him surpass his previous
best world ranking, by reaching number 26 on 8 April
2007.
He lost in a playoff at the 2007 BMW PGA
Championship, but moved into the top twenty of the
World Rankings for the first time, and by October
had reached a new career high of 12 and became the
top ranked British golfer. Rose won the European
Tour Order of Merit title for 2007 in a thrilling
climax to the season at the Volvo Masters, which he
won in a playoff on 4 November. His new world
ranking of number 7 made him the top-ranked European
golfer for the first time, and he has since moved up
to sixth in the rankings.
Rose married long-time girlfriend Kate Phillips, a
British former international gymnast, in December
2006. They have a house in Lake Nona, Florida, and a
riverside flat in the London suburb of Putney.
