Sunday, November 04, 2007

Coming Up Roses

Justin Rose made a birdie on the second hole of a sudden death playoff to capture his first Volvo Masters win. He had already secured the top spot on the Order of Merit by that time, just making it into the playoff did that for him. And he could rise up to 6th in the world after this season ending victory.

I am very happy to see Justin Rose win today. He really deserves it. Hopefully, his back injuries are a thing of the past and he will build on this year's successes next year.

You have to hand it to him. He decided to play in Europe, to try to make the Ryder Cup team, and when he saw himself in contention for the Order of Merit title, he decided to go after that as well. And he played smart this week. He had a strategy and stuck with it. He claimed to have a couple of mental errors in today's final round, but he had built himself a cushion to absorb that kind of thing. Watching him play yesterday, it looked as though he had a psychological strategy along with one for how to play the course. He seemed to be shorter off the tee than his playing partner (Harrington) to try to sucker him in, and I think it worked a few times. I don't know if this was intentional, but it sure did look like Rose's play forced/tricked Harrington into making some decisions that didn't turn out all that great.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think Rose played very cleverly considering he was carrying this mystery bug, you could physically see how pale he looked at times. I expect his strategy possibly reflected his physical and mental state at the time. I think we will see Justin go from strength to strength now and im eagerly awaiting 2008!