Justin Rose reckons his race is run

Justin Rose admits that his hopes of winning a third straight event are all but over, even though he carded a three-under 69 to move to five-under for the tournament.

As impressive as that is, it’s still 11 shots worse off than 54-hole leader Rory McIlroy and, consequently, the Englishman reckons his chances of winning the Claret Jug this year are marginal at best.

“I think I’ve maybe used up most of my luck the last couple of weeks,” said the world No.3, who won the Quicken Loans National as well as last week’s Scottish Open. “This week, it’s been sort of hard going for me. I’ve played well and not got the most out of how I feel like I’ve played.

“That and being on the wrong side of the draw. There’s not many guys ahead of me that have played  on this side of the draw. I’m right there leading the ‘other’ Open. If you split it up and look at it, I’m doing well considering the guys I’ve played against.

“So, for the most part I’m happy with my performance. The thing with this game is that many weeks you play and you don’t get the most out of it. The weeks you do get the most out of it, that’s when you win.”

“There’s a lot of surprise that no-one could get their tee time until 10.30pm last night.” – Justin Rose

The third round was expected to be somewhat attritional, with heavy rain and thunderstorms predicted to wreak havoc with the day’s play. That, though, isn’t how it turned out. The much vaunted delays never happened and the rain stopped earlier than anticipated.

“It was the easiest conditions I’ve had all week,” confirmed Rose. “Obviously, the warm-up looked to be incredibly difficult. The rain was lashing down but, as we got to the first tee, it really eased off. We had a couple of little showers out there but, for the most part, it was really scoreable, good golfing weather.”

Whilst he stopped short of criticising the R&A for being overly cautious in sending the players out in threeballs in a two-tee start, Rose did admit he was a little frustrated not to be given more advance warning of the changes to the schedule and format.

Asked what the majority of opinion was amongst the players for the two-tee start, the 2013 US Open champion said: “Surprise. And there’s a lot of surprise that no-one could get their tee time until 10.30pm last night, too. That’s very tough when you’re trying to prepare for the tournament.

“I saw Brandt Snedeker tweeted at 10.30pm that he didn’t know his tee time. I don’t know why.”

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Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor