It is said that a person becomes the average of the five people they associate with the most. If this is true, Justin Rose is surrounded by a team of studs.
In my thirty years of teaching elite players, I have never come across a player I have taught, with the exception of Sir Nick Faldo, that comes close to Justin Rose. In many ways, they are cut from the same cashmere cloth.
Let’s look at resilience. Famously, Justin missed 21 cuts after finishing T4 at Royal Birkdale. Heck, he was only three shots from winning the darn thing and might have done if he’d contained his third round 75. But alas, 21 one missed cuts followed that famous Open and with it, Justin’s nickname ‘JustInvite’ blossomed, espoused if you will, by long in the tooth older tour players or younger and jealous wannabes. It’s safe to say, that Justin Rose has paid back those invites and faith in droves and has equally and unequivocally converted those once bitter contemporaries.
I could list so many occasions, even Ryder Cup matches involving Phil Mickelson at Medinah or Hunter Mahan at Gleneagles, when the chips were down, defeat was probable, but Justin Rose’s resilience was monotonously predictable. He stands tall, plays hard and shows the minerals that few in any given sport seem to possess.
When you have a great team and a great family around you, belief is replaced by faith. Sports people who claim belief subtly expose a desperation that hopefully something works out. Belief and believing is clinging. Faith is letting go, gloriously allowing the innate to marry seamlessly with a disciplined technique. This is Justin Rose.
I can only speak as I find. As Mark Leishman surprisingly found out after being asked by intellectually needy journo….’Do you know what you don’t know’? – Well the answer is no.
Justin Rose’s caddy, Mark Fulcher or Fooch, is as dedicated to his boss as a parent is to their first born.
He is a fan, a professional, a confide and a truly wonderful man possessing the dry sense of irony and wit that only the son of a consummate policeman could own. Caddying is not an easy occupation. It involves a kaleidoscope of skills that all have to be on constant red alert during practice rounds, technical sessions and tournament play.
Justin Rose is a pedigree race horse who likes as many insurance policies in his game as possible, he does not like doubt of any kind. Fooch has not only successfully navigated this mental minefield, he has deftly raked over the sand and nullified all probable explosions that could occur. Hang around with Fooch and your stock goes up in value.
If you have played golf for more than three days in a row, you can appreciate that golf is not an unathletic endeavor. Justin, like any golfer, has had his fair share of bodily malady’s. If I am right, JR had to be wheelchaired out of the Qatar Masters with back issues even in his early 20’s; a slightly worrying situ early in one’s career.
As we stand here today, in 2018, he has morphed into the physical specimen that has allowed him to become world #1 and injury-less. The man behind the scenes is the ever-humble Justin Buckthorpe who has applied his unique knowledge, his continued education and his professionalism to the Justin Rose project. It is one thing to have success in singularity; but to attract more business and then create perpetual success like JB has done with the likes of Eddie Pepperell and Chris Wood is testament to his IP knowledge base. Simply put, when you work with Justin Buckthorpe, it’s not so much that no stone is left unturned, rather than he has taken those stones and re crafted them into skeletal and physical perfection. Hang around with Bucky and you go from good to great.
There’s a saying that behind every good man, there’s a great woman. Hogan had Valerie, Nicklaus had Barbara and Justin has Kate. As a former British gymnast, Kate Rose provides the kind of supportive and mental ballast that few would be inspired by. All ambitious people, men and woman, need mental permission to run free if they are to pursue their dreams.
Without this permission, without the ability not to be constantly looking over your shoulder to see if the home fort is collapsing and without the ability to know, that this vocational pursuit is unambiguously shared by the nearest and dearest……the dream is snuffed out before it’s started.
The word team is for people who nowadays bandy their words cheaply; unashamedly, they are a great team – the yin to the yang. Hang around with Kate Rose and you’ll get become a person of positive action.
To End…..
I recently did a Periscope titled ‘Kids are Great and then Parents Happen to them’…it magnified the ever-increasing mania that make up the pushy parents in golf. Justin Rose had two great parents, one fire and one water. One who was clearly an amazing mentor and the other……well, steadfast ballast again in Annie Rose.
This is an opinion……a guess, so please forgive me.
For anyone who has had a parent that mentored, invested and nurtured them into a functional human, you never forget those seeds that were sown, you can’t forget those seeds that were sown. They reside in the deep ruts of one’s mind, providing the deepest meaning of why you get up in the morning.
For we are the lucky ones.
At some point, Justin Rose made a pact to himself that he would honour the incredible investments made by the one…….and the current and living all of his team.
Justin Rose is #1 in the world. He damn well deserves it.
Nick.