JUSTIN ROSE
It was the same questions week after week . " What ' s wrong , Justin ?" What are you going to do about it , Justin ?". " When will it all end , Justin ?"
One day , Ken said : " Justin , you know I can get you out of this . I can get you out of the back door of the tent after you have signed your card so you don ' t have to face the journalists . Monty [ Colin Montgomerie ] would do that . So would many other players . I can fix it for you . Thanks Dad but no ," Justin replied . " I ' ve got to go through this . It ' s part of becoming what I want to become , a champion . I don ' t like it particularly but I ' ll do it . I ' m learning from it ."
His first victory was a long time coming . He had to wait until the 2002 Dunhill Championship in South Africa , in which he scorched home with rounds of 71 , 66 , 66 , 65 . A few months later , along came his second title , the British Masters , in which he pipped his great mate Ian Poulter by a shot .
It was in that same year that Rose lost father to cancer and it affected him deeply . Perhaps more deeply than even he knew .
Everybody had expected his success in 2002 would open the floodgates , but Rose had to wait until the 2007 season , when he won the Mastercard Masters and Volvo Masters to finish the season as Number One in Europe .
But it is in America where he has achieved his greatest successes . In 2010 he won the AT & T and The Memorial , in 2011 the BMW
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THEZONE / ISSUE 23