Justin Rose is still shaking it with the best of them, as he likes to say.
Rose, ranked 39th in the world, showed staying power in the second round of the 89th Masters Tournament on Friday. He’s more than holding his own against the younger generation.
The 44-year-old Englishman, who is a dozen years removed from his one major championship (the 2013 U.S. Open), shot 1-under-par 71 at Augusta National Golf Club to remain at the top of the leaderboard, though his rivals are gaining on him.
Rose, who opened with 65 for a three-shot lead, heads into Saturday's third round with a one-shot over Bryson DeChambeau, who shot 68. DeChambeau, the current U.S. Open champion, is one of 12 players from the LIV Golf Tour in this year’s Masters.
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, who opened with 72, roared back with 66, the low round of the day. He’s two shots behind Rose. So is Canadian Corey Conners, who had 70 on Friday.
Four golfers are three shots back: Defending champion Scottie Scheffler (71), Northern Ireland’s Shane Lowry (68), Masters rookie Matt McCarty (68) and LIV golfer Tyrrell Hatton (70).
“The guy to watch is DeChambeau,” said Fred Couples, the 1992 Masters champion. “DeChambeau, if it's not blowing, I think he's going to make 13 birdies the next two days. So he can offset a few bogeys with the way he plays.
"Then Rory. Look at what Rory did today. Everyone was picking on him after a couple doubles (at the end of his first round). He says, you know what, here's what I'm going to do the back nine. Did he shoot 30? 31? (It was 31). So there you go, folks.”
The bad news for the field is that DeChambeau “found his swing” on the back nine on Saturday. He said after his opening 69 that he wasn’t “dialed in.”
Rose and DeChambeau will be off in the final group at 2:40 p.m. Saturday. Rose will no doubt will be hitting first from the fairway in that group all day, since DeChambeau is averaging 331 yards off the tee and Rose is at 294 yards per drive.
Rose, who is 13 years older than DeChambeau, is accustomed to playing with the world’s best golfers, no matter the generation. He will get a front row seat to watch DeChambeau on Saturday.
“Yeah, you know, that's the company that I expect to keep, and that's where I have tried to be my whole career,” said Rose, who won the gold medal at the 2016 Olympics. “That's where I've been for a lot of my career. So I've been a top-10 player in the world for a decade or more. So yeah, this is nice to, obviously, yeah, be back in that mix, a hundred percent.”
Rose wasn’t as sharp Friday as the first round, calling it a “decent day.” He hit only 10 greens in regulation ― compared with 14 on Thursday ― and needed 27 putts, two more than Thursday.
“Sometimes it's hard to follow a low round with another one,” Rose said. “Just the nature of it sometimes. But I feel like if you're playing good golf, you're playing good golf, you know. And I feel like I wasn't pinned to yesterday's round and I wasn't pinned to the leaderboard and I wasn't pinned to leading this golf tournament. Yeah, I was pretty focused on the job at hand.”
He’s leading after 54 holes for the second time in his 20 trips to Augusta National. In 2004, he had weekend rounds of 81-71 to tie for 22nd, and in 2021 he shot 72-74 to finish seventh.
He’s ready to bring it on home, ...
