AUGUSTA, Ga. — Shed no golf ball-sized tears for Justin Rose.
The Englishman has carved a hall-of-fame career out of a sport that, while demanding, isn’t exactly offshore oil drilling. He’s won a U.S. Open, an Olympic gold medal and been ranked No. 1 in the world.
Still, when it comes to this tournament and this place — the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club — the golfing gods owe him one. They owe the 45-year-old Londoner a green jacket.
I know it. You know it. But if Rose knows it, he refuses to articulate the thought.
“No, I don’t feel like (the Masters) owes me anything,” Rose said here Monday. “I come here with a good attitude.”
A remarkable perspective from someone who has been so heartbreakingly close. He tied for second in 2015 with Phil Mickelson, a distant four strokes behind Jordan Spieth. Two years later, he dueled Sergio Garcia stroke-for-stroke on Sunday after they began tied for the lead, only to have a wayward drive cost him in the playoff.
Last year, Rose lost in a playoff again, this time to Rory McIlroy, whose tear-streaked victory in a one-hole playoff to clinch the career grand slam ranks as one of the most poignant Masters moments ever. The win ended an 11-year drought in the majors for McIlroy and made him the sixth man and first European to capture the career grand slam.
“This is a historic moment in golf, isn’t it? Someone who achieves the career grand slam,” Rose said then, summoning up Olympic-sized swimming pools of magnanimity. “I wanted to be the bad guy today, but still, it’s a momentous occasion for the game of golf.”
A year later, Rose described the surreal nature of the moment, of besting McIlroy by seven strokes that epic Sunday — 66 to 73 — and still losing.
“I felt a little bit of deja vu,” Rose said. “Like, ‘Wow, I feel like I’ve lived this before.’
“When you realize you’re that close, you can taste the victory. You know what it would feel like had it been the other way around. I could see what it felt like. I can see the celebrations. It all played out right in front of me. I kind of sensed everything.”
No one has led more rounds in the Masters without slipping into a green jacket than Rose (nine). Only three men — Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Tom Weiskopf — have more runner-up finishes (four) than Rose’s three. But of those, only Weiskopf failed to eventually win.
At 45, Rose clearly still has the game to become a Masters champion. He’s ranked ninth in the world, and he comes in on solid form, having won the Farmers Insurance Open in February at Torrey Pines by seven strokes.
At the same time, the clock ticks ever louder for Rose. Only one Masters winner, Nicklaus at 46 in 1986, was older than Rose is now. Still, his long track record in the Masters — seven top-10 finishes in 20 previous starts — tells Rose what he wants to believe about his chances to finally take one across the finish line. That and the fact that nine previous Masters champions — most recently Dustin Johnson in 2020 — finished second the year before.
“It only boosts my belief that I can go ahead and do it,” said Rose, who counts the 2015 Zurich Classic of New Orleans among his 13 PGA Tour victories. “I feel like I’ve executed well enough to have done the job. I don’t feel like I have to find something in myself or do something different. I truly believe that.”
In 2024, Hurricane Helene altered this famous landscape, knocking down untold numbers of trees that were quite noticeable by their absence during the 2025 Masters. Rose remarked that three trees behind the green on the demanding 11th hole — the entry ramp to fabled Amen Corner — have been replaced. It is pleasing to his eye.
“The cricket stumps, I call them, because that was my target there into 11,” Rose said with a becoming smile. “That’s nice those are back this year.”
Every hole at Augusta National, which sits on an enormous former nursery called Fruitlands, is named after a plant or tree that grows on that hole. None are called Rose. Maybe if Rose finally wins, they’ll rename one of Augusta’s 18 for him. For a place that can easily transplant three fully grown trees behind the 11th green, it would be a minor landscaping task by comparison.
“I’m not much of a gardener,” he said. “My mum is all over that.”
Save your flowers for Justin Rose.
Get him that long-awaited green jacket instead. He deserves it.