In his two PGA Tour starts with his new McLaren irons, Justin Rose has posted a T-65 at the Cadillac Championship at Doral and T-45 at the Truist Championship. An inauspicious beginning for Rose and McLaren, to be sure. But the Englishman isn’t putting on the brakes in regards to his new irons – he’s just getting revved up.
“I’m not here at (age) 45 because I’ve done the same things over the last 10 years,’’ said at this week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club outside of Philadelphia. “I’m always doing something different, I’m always pushing myself; I’m always finding one percent. That’s what makes it exciting.
“I’ve done a good job of grinding and finding improvement. Because obviously everyone out here is getting better. These young guys… the level on Tour, I think, has gotten so much stronger in the last 10 years. So if you’re staying the same, you are going backwards.’’
Indeed. Justin Rose is moving forward with his new McLaren irons – a decision that has drawn praise and criticism across the golf world.
“There was talk about maybe even putting them in play for Pebble Beach,’’ this past February, Rose said. “So it’s definitely been something that I’ve been working on for a long time behind the scenes.
“Now it’s just like getting after it. Put ’em in play, I’m comfortable with them. The technology behind them is wonderful. I’m seeing more performance in my range sessions, the spin and the launch and the speed and all the stuff I’m seeing on the range is performance, and I’m seeing the performance.
“I’ve played so many different sets of irons in the last five years that I just don’t think that it’s a big deal. I’ve been working hard on this project for 18 months now, and it’s kind of like it’s a full wish list of all of the things I would like to see in a set of irons. So from that point of view, I’ve enjoyed the process of getting to this point. Yeah, I would love to play great this week with them. I can play great this week with them. The fact I haven’t played great the last two weeks has got nothing to do with the irons, either. There are 14 clubs in my bag – six or seven of them are irons. There’s a lot of other things that I need to do to play well. So my focus is on all areas of my game, and I’m excited to compete and play well this week.’’