Q&A with Justin Rose

Gi: You have made no secret of your love of living in America – how much do you enjoy coming home to play?
JR: I love it – and the PGA at Wentworth is one of my favourite tournaments to play. Outside the majors it is up there as the one I want to win. I grew up not far away, at North Hants, and it’s always good to get the buzz of the crowd and feel like a hometown boy again. I’ve been coming to Wentworth since I was about 8 years old – I’d be one of the kids behind the 18th green asking for a ball. It’s a sign of how far I’ve come – and of the years rolling by! I like to do my best to remember I was in those kids’ shoes and that is the future of golf coming through, which is kind of cool.

Gi: What do you make of what they have done?
JR: I can understand what they are trying to achieve, toughening up the course a little bit. They needed to do something about the greens. In recent years the seed on the greens made holing a putt of any significant length all but out of your control. But it’s always hard to see an iconic golf course go through the quite dramatic changes we have witnessed. A couple of holes, for me, they have got a little too busy, there’s too much going on. Having said that, I think the 18th is probably a better hole now. The thing with Wentworth is it’s such an iconic course you tend to look at it as you remember it watching the world’s best compete there over the years in PGA’s and World Match Plays.

Gi: You moved from Nick Bradley to Tiger’s coach Sean Foley recently – how is that working out?
JR: I made the switch to Sean a little over a year ago and a lot of what I have worked on with Sean has been relatively easy because of where we had got before. Nick [Bradley] and I had done well together – he took me to No 6 in the world. But I just thought I was ready for a change. I feel that Sean has ‘rounded off’ my swing made it more of a circle, made the plane a little better and more consistent and he’s added shots to my game. In the past I felt like I didn’t really know how to shape a ball. I didn’t really understand the science of hitting a ball right to left or left to right, clubface versus path versus hand angle and so on. Sean really teaches principles based on using feedback from TrackMan – he’s at the forefront of teaching that way. That’s the way golf is going right now and it suits me because I’m a fairly analytical type of player.

Gi: Given the quality of the data that’s teaching you can’t argue with?
JR: Sure. And the key is, it doesn’t necessarily have to look pretty in every sense of the word, in terms of having a swing on ‘perfect plane’ and having hands in certain positions. That kind of thinking is out of the window. What Sean does is have you think about assembling your levers and delivering the clubface in the most efficient way. You know, I have no doubt Tiger is a smart guy and he would not have made the decision to switch to Sean lightly. I switched to Sean after playing a lot of golf with Hunter Mahan and Sean O’Hair, and watching these guys hit shots that I just couldn’t hit. They were hitting shots that I was just not comfortable playing, something was not adding up and so that got me thinking. Sean is not a guy who is all that interested in self promotion – he’s just a serious coach who believes in what he does. I find him very genuine.

Gi: Do you see much of Tiger?
JR: Certainly since he’s been working with Sean we’ve spent a bit of time together. Talk golf technique. I’m a little further down the road with Sean than he is. But it’s fascinating to get an insight into the way he thinks about the game. They have been doing a lot of good work together – we saw glimpses of that on the last day at Augusta. But with the knee injury I think there are a lot of limitations on what Tiger can do.

Gi: Your game seems to get hot in bursts – is consistency the thing you work towards most?
JR: Certainly a goal of mine this year is to be in contention on a more regular basis – though perhaps not up to Luke Donald-standards – in terms of cuts made, top 20 finishes and so on. I’m getting there. I need the shortgame to improve a little bit and I’ve just started working with Mark Roe. The long game and short game are very different animals. You know, in the long game I try to keep my right hand out of the swing and yet in chipping I’m looking for right hand feel and so on. Roey is very good. I think that when you work with someone who is an expert, like he is, it gives you clarity and when you have clarity it’s easier to practice more and practice well. When you are confused about something it’s very difficult to practice for 3 hours and make a difference – in fact you’ll probably get worse.

Gi: When you see the likes of Luke and Lee at the top of the rankings – guys you’ve grown up with – does it give you extra motivation?
JR: I think in the past I’ve consciously tried to do that – to get determined, to be more aggressive and work harder, thinking I’m every bit as good as they are. But that doesn’t really help me. What I need to do is not to pay too much attention to what others are doing. I work best when I focus on my own trend lines. I am getting incrementally better week-in and week-out. That’s all I can do. I’m not really much of a goal setter; I focus more on the learning experience and improvement process. If I keep on doing that I believe some great things will happen and I think my time will come. But it’s only going to happen if I can keep on improving – and that’s a hard thing to do.

Gi: How much of a benefit has the TaylorMade Performance Lab been to you on the equipment side?
JR: I am a big believer in technology. Always have been. We all have an idea as to how the swing feels, but as every golfer will tell you the reality of what you are actually doing is often very different to the reality. The Taylor- Made Matt system not only gives you all the data of Trackman but also a visual of your swing. I find that hugely beneficial. So, to give an example, not only can you see that you are coming ‘over the top’ on the way down, but the system tells you precisely by how many degrees. So on the next swing you might think, ‘OK, I was 6 degrees outside, this time I’ll get it inside’. You see it and now you are 4 degrees. So it gives you great feedback on how much you need to exaggerate a change.

Gi: You burst onto the scene in 1997, 21 years after Seve arrived at Birkdale. What are your own memories of him?
JR: Seve was the guy we all tried to be out on the putting green. You know, as a kid, summer holidays, all you ever did was chip and putt. I spent countless hours at North Hants playing like that. There was a wooded area near the putting green. We used to go deep into the woods and see how many shots it would take to hole out. Seve was always the guy I pictured doing that. I’ve played against him in the Seve Trophy, which was a great honour. He was not at his best at all, but he was still the guy who just looked so comfortable with a club in his hands. It just seemed to be a part of him, especially around the greens. There are some great short games out there – Luke Donald right now. But for sheer invention Seve was the greatest. When I won the Memorial at Muirfield Village last year Seve was honoured at the tournament – they honour a special individual every year. And there were a couple of times when I found myself in trouble and I can remember asking myself, ‘OK, what would Seve do?’. I’d try to play it like him. My sister Margi works for the Seve Foundation /Cancer Research and I had the chance to relay that story to him. We had a little correspondence. He signed a book I was presented with for winning the Memorial Tournament. ‘A huge success, keep going...’ he wrote. Jack signed it too. That’s one of my dearest possessions.

Gi: How has being a father changed your outlook over the last year or so?
JR: I think it put life into perspective; by that I mean golf is still important to me, it’s still my passion and my career. My destiny. But it’s not everything anymore. Basically, your good days are every bit as good, but your bad days are nowhere near as bad as they were. You get back to your hotel, see your little boy and suddenly snap out of it. Also sharing success is very much a part of our lives.

Gi: You’ll be back for the Open, any thoughts on Royal St George’s?
JR: I played there last time, in ’03. Not with a great deal of distinction, I might add, I seemed to be slashing out of hay all week. In fact I just had a text from Matt Dawson, who was just down there today and he said the course is looking amazing. Pretty firm and with all this dry weather the rough isn’t where it was eight years ago. But I can’t wait to be there. Any Open championship is a highlight in the calendar.

Gi: If you had to rank the majors...
JR: That’s a tough call – it shouldn’t be, but it is. OK, here goes: Open, Masters, US Open and USPGA. The Masters is my favourite major of the year to play, the Open would be my favourite major to win. The last few Opens have been tough weather-wise, so we should be due a good week. Fingers crossed.