‘You have to have a bit of heartache’: Justin Rose on his bid to avoid being Masters nearly man
Squint and you will see Justin Rose’s name twice on the tournament record boards at Augusta National.It’s there on the big bronze winner’s list at the water fountain by the entrance, beneath the entries marking Sergio García’s victory in 2017 and Rory McIlroy’s eight years later, both, as it says in the small print underneath, won in a playoff that Rose lost.Only one other player in Masters history lost two playoffs, and that was Ben Hogan, who had the consolation of winning it twice outright, in 1951 and 1953, in between finishing second in 1942, 1946, 1954 and 1955.Throw in Rose’s second-place finish behind Jordan Spieth in 2015, when he finished four shots back, and he has come just about as close as any man can to the greatest prize in the game.The only player who finished second more often without actually winning the thing was Tom Weiskopf, who was runner-up four times in the space of seven years.
“I will win this tournament one day,” Weiskopf said after he missed a birdie putt on 18 to force a playoff against Jack Nicklaus in 1975.He was 33 and it turned out to be the last best chance he ever had.Rose is 45.This is his 21st Masters and of course there’s no way of knowing whether he will ever get as close again as he did last year, when he watched McIlroy make a birdie putt on 18 to beat him by one in the playoff.“When you realise you’re that close, you can taste the victory,” Rose says.
“You know what it would feel like if it been the other way around,I could see what it felt like, I can see the celebrations, it all played out right in front of me,So I lived it as if I’d have won it, but obviously without any of the real positive emotion that goes with that, but I sensed everything,” It’s as close as he comes to allowing himself to think about the big what-if,“I did everything that I could do.
So I can live with that in a way.”Rose says he has always tried to keep his thoughts on all this squared away.He says it’s how he stays out of his own way.“I’ve realised that when the opportunity presents itself to win a major, you can’t make it too important in the moment.Because you can’t skip through a career without a little bit of heartache and heartbreak, no chance.
If you’re going to be willing to win them, you’ve got to be willing to be on the wrong side of it as well.The point is you’ve got to put yourself there.That’s the hard part.”Rose has a habit of doing exactly that.He has held a share of the lead nine separate times, but he might still end up as one of the tournament’s attendant lords, hovering on the edge of shot during someone else’s moment on the 18th green.
Not that he sees it that way.“I think for me I’m very aware that I’ve been close here,” he says.“I’m very aware that I’ve had tough, tough losses here.But I also am aware that I enjoy this place.So I don’t need to create a different sort of feeling for me.
“I hope it only boosts my belief that I can go ahead and do it,I feel like I’ve pretty much done what it takes to win,I just haven’t walked over the line,I feel like I’ve executed well enough to have done the job,From that point of view, I don’t feel like I have to find something in myself to do anything different.
I truly believe that,”To be fair, all the reflective thinking can wait till he is done playing,Right now, Rose is playing as well as ever,It was only a couple of months ago that he broke the course record at Torrey Pines, where he was the first man to win the Farmers Insurance Open wire to wire in 71 years,“I think eight players have won this tournament after finishing second the year before, which probably increases my odds if you look at the field.
I can look at that and go, ‘OK, that’s good.’”The problem is that coming second is a role he plays well.He seemed genuinely pleased for McIlroy last year and was especially gracious in the moments after he lost.He would be a popular winner this year.“A lot of people are wishing me well or thinking it’s going to be my year, just based around sentiment, you know what I mean?” he says.
“So I’m going to have to manage that a bit this week, and what’s going to be part of my week this week for sure is people remembering what happened last year,That’s fine, but I’ve got to be aware of that, be ready for that,I’ve got to have my own narrative and not buy into everyone else’s,”
People living with incontinence face shortage of sanitary pads as NHS limits supplies
Millions of people across the UK living with incontinence are facing shortages of sanitary products due to supplies being rationed by NHS trusts, according to a coalition of charities.The shortages are leading to a “pad gap” where people are having to pay for incontinence products themselves, according to an open letter from organisations including the Royal College of Nursing, Prostate Cancer UK, and Bowel and Bladder UK.Around 14 million people across the UK experience incontinence. Healthcare workers in the NHS expect to fit up to five pads a day for patients who experience incontinence, according to research, but freedom of information data from 110 NHS trusts show that more than half (53%) have a cap on the availability of products.Of these trusts, 34% have a cap of three products a day, while the remaining 66% have a cap of four products a day, which is lower than the expected need
NHS urges patients not to put off care as doctors in England prepare for strike
The NHS is urging patients not to put off seeking the care they need when resident doctors press ahead with strike action from Tuesday, a stoppage that the health secretary has called “disappointing”.Tens of thousands of resident doctors in England are to stage a six-day strike after the government took a key part of its offer off the table.The Department of Health and Social Care said last week that an offer of 1,000 extra training places would no longer be “financially or operationally” possible.NHS England said hospital teams across the country would be working to minimise disruption for patients during the stoppage, which is “expected to be particularly challenging” because of a shorter notice period.Patients have been advised to attend planned appointments unless they have been contacted to reschedule, and those with life-threatening emergencies should still call 999 or attend A&E
Say it right! The trouble with unfamiliar names | Letters
Priti Ubhayakar’s article resonated with me because of my non-English surname (A moment that changed me: for the first time in my life, a stranger pronounced my name correctly, 1 April). I grew up in the 1950s on a very English council estate. Most other kids were a Brown, Smith, Jones, etc, but I was an Uszkurat. My lineage is complex on my dad’s side, with a Lithuanian grandfather whose original name was changed to Uszkurat by, I think, German authorities. My dad was born in a part of Europe that was German until the Treaty of Versailles made it part of the new Poland
A striking exchange between nurse and doctor | Brief letters
As a young ward sister and trade union steward, I remember, in the 1980s, when I was on the picket line in front of my hospital, stopping a doctor in his Mercedes. He asked me who I was, and I replied: “One of your colleagues.” He looked at me with contempt and answered: “I don’t think so, my colleagues are intelligent people.” So I wonder where their newfound enthusiasm for industrial action comes from. Has the price of Range Rovers gone up?Hilary BramleyCourbesseaux, France There seem to be experts for every aspect of life nowadays, but to read that the Woodland Trust has a “conversation adviser” in the form of Dr Ed Pyne surely takes the biscuit (Contractor that cut back 500-year-old oak in London park identified, 3 April)
Medicines watchdog to investigate UK peptide clinics over health claims
The medicines regulator is investigating whether UK clinics are breaking the law by making claims about the benefits of unregulated, experimental peptide therapies, the Guardian can reveal.Interest in experimental peptides has boomed in recent years. The substances are delivered by injection and are touted by sellers, influencers and even some medics as aiding everything from anti-ageing to recovery from injury.There is little scientific evidence to support such health and wellness claims in humans. Where studies have been carried out, most are in animals or cells
‘Young people want to come together’: experts respond to mass teen meet-ups in Clapham
It started with a flyer sent around on Snapchat. Teenagers were invited to gather at a south London basketball court to celebrate the start of the Easter holidays. They were told to bring their own weed and laughing gas because it was going to be a late one.What followed in the hours after was chaos. Hundreds of young people came to the “link-up” last Saturday, and then gathered on Clapham High Street
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