While Justin Rose holds the dubious distinction of losing a pair of Masters Tournament playoffs, there may be few in the game equipped to handle it like him.
The 44-year-old fell to Rory McIlroy on the first playoff hole of the 2025 Masters Tournament, mirroring his outcome in 2017 against Sergio Garcia.
Following a stellar 65 in Thursday’s opening round, Rose seemed to fade after stumbling through the second nine Saturday. Instead of dwelling on the setback, he turned that anger into determination to flip the script Sunday.
“Definitely I'm proud of myself. I think — yeah, played great golf today. Came out — I think I flipped the switch from yesterday. Yesterday I was so angry coming off the golf course because I turned 69 into 75 yesterday. I didn't let that momentum seep into today, and I think that that was, from a professionalism point of view, very, very proud of that switch overnight and into this morning.”
Was it his best round, ever? Some might say 10 birdies ― and eight over the final 12 holes ― might make it such. We are talking about the 2013 U.S. Open champion, after all.
“I mean, nearly. It's a bogey away from being the greatest round I've ever played.,” he said. “It is, it is a great round. I think if you look at the quality of golf, it possibly, possibly is.”
At the time, a chance to force a playoff seemed unlikely. Rose drained a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 18, but still had to wait for McIlroy to leave the door open. A missed short putt on the 72nd hole from the 35-year-old pushed the duo into a sudden-death playoff on No. 18. McIlroy proceeded to hit his second shot 4 feet from the pin, setting up the winning putt.
“Unfortunately, the playoff, they always end so quickly. You know, that's sudden death,” Rose said. “You don't really get an opportunity. If you're not the guy to hit the great shot or hole the great putt, it's over. So I felt like, that's the nature of sudden death. But not really anything I could have done more today.”
