With five career top-10 finishes in the PGA Championship, the second major of the calendar year has typically been very kind to Justin Rose.
In a year in which he’s rekindled his love for the sport and got back into the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour, Rose will be hoping for a return to major glory in 2023.
The Mighty Oak
First up for the man who still owns a home in Putney is a trip to New York for the 2023 PGA Championship.
At 66/1 in the golf odds for today, Rose is a dangerous outsider in a field headed by a heavyweight trio of Jon Rahm (13/2), Scottie Scheffler (13/2) and Rory McIlroy (10/1), but his experience at the Oak Hill Country Club – he is one of the few to have teed it up there when the PGA Championship last made its way to the venue in 2013 – could come in handy.
The 42-year-old finished 33rd back then, but with an extra decade’s worth of experience under his belt Rose should be well-placed to improve on that, which is why he will surely feature heavily in the golf betting tips this week.
Congratulations to 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am champion Justin Rose. pic.twitter.com/gMJixJ5brz
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) February 6, 2023
He has form in the bank, too. Rose won the AT&T Pebble Beach event back in February, finished tied-sixth in the prestigious Players Championship and was 16th in The Masters in April, so he continues to show that he’s got the class to mix it with the best in the business.
That big game temperament could come in very handy at the PGA Championship…
Hollywood Bound
The third of 2023’s majors will see the players head to Los Angeles for the U.S. Open.
A tournament which has provided Rose with arguably his finest moment in golf to date, the U.S. Open is typically set up as the hardest of the majors by the USGA – conditions that perhaps lend themselves best to the success of veterans who have the nous to plot their way around the course, rather than trying to make birdies at every turn.
It’s likely that Los Angeles Country Club, a venue yet to host a major, will be similarly challenging given that the course is wholly exposed to the elements of the Pacific Ocean.
Gil Hanse, a golf architect who has renovated many of America’s finest old courses over the years, has been brought in to ensure that George C. Thomas’ old design is fit for a modern major tournament.
If you’re looking for omens, Rose won the 2016 Olympic gold medal at a course designed from scratch by, you guessed it, Hanse.
On the Mersey
The fourth and final golf major of 2024 will see the Open Championship return to The Royal Liverpool Golf Club after a nine-year hiatus.
There are just 100 days until the first day of The 151st Open at @RLGCHoylake . Major season is well and truly underway. pic.twitter.com/S7xrmiZx3M
— The Open (@TheOpen) April 11, 2023
Rose finished 23rd the last time the Merseyside venue hosted the Open in 2014, and this is a course that should suit the Englishman – so acute is the need for strategic play at Royal Liverpool that the driver is rarely taken out of the bag, which will negate the advantages that the power-hitters have over more accurate types like Rose.
So, who knows, perhaps the man who still calls south west London home for parts of the year will add another major trophy to his collection in 2023.
Featured image credit: Jhansen23 via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence
