Then there was Justin Rose.

There will never be such a thing as a perfect round of golf, but the 37-year-old Englishman’s week at Hogan’s Alley was beyond impressive and, more importantly, perfect enough. Despite Na’s too-late charge—he was undone by middle rounds of 73 and 70—and Koepka’s eight birdies in the final round, Rose coasted to a three-stroke victory for his ninth career win on the PGA Tour, tying him with Nick Faldo for the most ever by a Englishman.

After all, 66-64-66-64 on the par-70 layout is tough to beat. Rose’s 20-under total tied his career-low 72-hole score and was the second lowest total in event history behind Zach Johnson’s four-day 259 in 2010.

“Probably at the top,” Rose said when asked where he would rate his ball-striking for the week on the tree-lined Fort Worth track. “I think in 2012-2013, I put together some pretty special ball-striking. I think I led greens in regulation one of those years. But this is sort of back to my best for sure from an iron play point of view.”

Rose led the field at Colonial in that category, hitting 57 of 72 greens in regulation for the week, including 14 on Sunday. For the week, his strokes gained on approach shots was up there, too. Rose’s previous best was a +2.98 average at the 2004 Deutsche Bank Championship. At Colonial, he averaged +2.563 for the week.

Numbers only tell part of the story, though.

Stan Badz
Rose’s ninth career PGA Tour win tied him with Nick Faldo for most by an Enlighman.

After Rose and Koepka had each played their first five holes in two under, Koepka holed a 40-yard bunker shot for birdie on the par-3 sixth in what could have been a big momentum shift. Instead, Rose calmly drained his 10-footer to match. He’d also made a 20-footer for birdie on the previous hole.

“[They] were big moments in my round,” Rose said. “Definitely to make a couple of key putts to get comfortable with the putter early in my round, I felt that that was really, really important for me.”

Playing in the same group as Koepka, Rose knew he had somebody that wasn’t just going to give him the title. Rather, there was going to be someone pushing him right under his nose.

“It was his putting that looked so special for me today,” Rose noted of his challenger. “He actually holed a lot of good par putts today. He wasn’t always in it for birdie. He made some really good six-, eight-foot par putts. Looked like when he was on the green he was going to make birdie. I knew I needed to keep playing aggressive.”

Koepka, not surprisingly, did, too. That’s his style, and he went out in 31. Pretty good. The only problem was he still lost a stroke to Rose, who went out in 30 playing alongside him.

Koepka chipped into the deficit with four birdies over his first eight holes on the back nine but it wasn’t enough, with Rose adding birdies of his own at the par-5 11th and another from 25 feet on the par-4 17th.

“I felt like every hole one of us had a birdie,” Koepka said.

Stan Badz/PGA Tour
Rose’s game tee to green in Fort Worth was arguably the best he has played for a single week in his career.

It only felt that way. Between the two of them they birdied 10 of 18 holes on Sunday, and each bogeyed the 18th. By then, of course, it didn’t matter.

The victory is Rose’s second of the season and comes just a couple weeks shy of the only major he has ever won, the U.S. Open—which Koepka claimed a year ago. It also etches his name into a trophy at Colonial that includes Hogan and Nicklaus, among other legends.

“It was very impressive the way he played all day,” Koepka said of Rose. “He never backed off. Never really gave an opportunity for anybody to get in there.”

Rose wasn’t perfect. Just perfect enough, and damn good.

The post Justin Rose outdoes himself with his latest win at Colonial—just in time for the U.S. Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
If his play at Colonial is any indication, Justin Rose has made himself one of the favourites to win a second U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in three weeks time, if he wasn’t already. The Englishman has been a machine, carding rounds of 66, 64 and Saturday’s four-under 66 to take a commanding four-shot lead into Sunday at the Fort Worth Invitational.

Rose, 37, had yet to tee off as Jon Rahm and Corey Conners each made a huge move, with Rahm eventually finishing off a six-under 64 and Conners a seven-under 63 to get into a tie for fourth at eight-under 202. Rose was able to distance himself from them immediately, making three consecutive birdies to open his round. With a chance to really do some damage though, he made just two more birdies and a bogey the rest of the way, putting him at 14-under 196.

“It was nice to get going, nice to sort of build up that lead,” said Rose. “No one seemed to do too much behind me today, so it felt like it was in my hands to try and get as far ahead as I could. Obviously, that’s the only thing, I kind of struggled toward the end. It was so hot out there I really felt I was battling the golf course and my concentration.

“It was kind of tough to finish that off in that heat I found today. All in all, happy to be in the clubhouse, good day’s work.”

Rose will have to beat the heat again on Sunday in Fort Worth, with temperatures expected to be in the high 90s again. For the 14th time in his career, he holds a 54-hole lead or co-lead, something he’s converted on just three times.

“You’re kind of caught between trying to play great and also go out there and not make mistakes,” he said. “For me it’s just going to be about one shot at a time, to make birdies here. I feel like there’s a score in this golf course. So I’ve got to expect the chasing pack to go out there and play well, I don’t think I can just rest on my laurels and shoot even par tomorrow.”

Among that chasing pack is the reigning U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, who will play in the final group with Rose on Sunday after posting a three-under 67, a round made all the more impressive by Koepka’s ability to bounce back after a double-bogey at the par-5 11th. Birdies at 12, 14 and a 16-footer at the 18th saved his round, and have him tied for second with Emiliano Grillo at 10-under 200.

Rahm and Conners are joined at eight under by Louis Oosthuizen, J.T. Poston and Ryan Armour.

The post Justin Rose in control at Colonial, leads by four after third-round 66 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
In 2016, Jordan Spieth won in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the first time in his PGA Tour career. The victory by the hometown kid was even more significant because it came less than two months after his Masters collapse, with the young Texan having blown a five-shot lead with nine holes to go thanks in part to a quadruple-bogey 7 after putting two in the water on Augusta National’s 12th hole.

A little more than a month later at Colonial Country Club, Spieth was spectacular in all the right ways, closing out a pair of weekend 65s with three straight birdies on Sunday that included a 20-foot putt on 16, a 43-foot chip-in (after his ball had bounced off the face of the grandstand on 17) and a 34-foot tracker for good measure on 18. After playing his first nine holes of the final round in even par, Spieth made six birdies and took just nine putts over his last nine to coast to a three-stroke win.

“I think the golf gods are certainly on our side,” Spieth said that afternoon. “I caught some breaks today.”

Without a victory since last July’s triumph at the Open Championship at Birkdale, the 24-year-old Spieth could use a few more these days. Or he could at least do with making a few more putts. It’s not just that he’s winless in the 10 months, but how that’s come to be.

Spieth enters this week’s Fort Worth Invitational ranked 190th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained/putting, losing an average of .471 strokes per round to the field on the green this season. Two years ago, he was second in the category, picking up an average of .758 per round. You don’t need to be a math whiz to figure out this one.

“Each day it’s getting a little more comfortable,” Spieth said Wednesday at Colonial of his putting stroke. “I believe that they’ll fall soon enough.”

Soon can’t come fast enough.

At last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson, Spieth missed a putt from one foot. There were other cringe-worthy moments, too, for a player who many profess to be one of the best putters in the game. Spieth missed three more putts inside five feet and ended the week with 129 total putts, taking no fewer than 31 in any one round. Spieth ranked 72nd of the 75 players who made the cut in total putts, which stood out even more when considering that he ranked fourth in approach shots.

It’s not only the totality of the numbers that seems so surprising. It’s where the misses are coming from.

Inside 10 feet, Spieth ranks 175th on tour, making a little more than 85 percent of putts from that range. He hasn’t been very good from longer distances, either, ranking 180th between 10 and 15 feet and 199th from 15 to 20.

Two years ago, Spieth was 50th inside 10 feet, making 88.27 percent of his putts from that range. He was even better from 10-15 and 15-20 feet, ranking 16th and second, respectively. The latter are game changers, and the lack of putts dropping from those distances of late is what’s separated Spieth from his peers—in all the wrong ways.

It’s also what has perturbed Spieth the most.

“Making putts,” he said when asked what will give him the confidence with the flat stick. “I mean, especially from the 10- to 20-foot range, kind of my go-to range, one that I’ve historically been really good at and just haven’t quite gotten them to fall. I would like to get in a nice little groove, get some momentum, have the hole look a little bit bigger this week.”

With the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills just a few weeks away, now would be as good a time as any.

“I may hit just as good of a putt two holes in a row, one goes in, one doesn’t,” Spieth said. “That one that goes in feels a lot better.”

The post A visit to Colonial, and memories of his 2016 win, could wake up Jordan Spieth from his putting slump appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.