Tuesday 20 January 2015 18:22, UK
Justin Rose admits he has not achieved enough on the European Tour, ahead of his 250th tournament appearance this week at the Qatar Masters.
The Johannesburg-born player has managed seven wins since joining the tour more than 15 years ago, most recently lifting the Scottish Open title last July.
Rose joins a star-studded line up at Doha GC this week that includes world No 2 Henrik Stenson and reigning champion Sergio Garcia, but admits he was unaware he had reached a landmark number of tournaments.
“That means I’m getting old!” Rose said. “I’ve been around the block, but what it tells me is there’s not enough wins in those 250 yet, so it would be nice to have another good 100 (European Tour appearances) ahead of me.
“There were some dark times in there and obviously missing 21 cuts was a pretty rough start to my professional career, but I’ve put all my faith in hard-work and slowly the confidence came back.
“Winning the Order of Merit on the European Tour in 2007 was a huge highlight – that’s one of the achievements I’m very, very proud of – so there’ll be a lot to look back on when it’s all said and done.”
Rose made a sluggish start to last week’s opening Desert Swing event in Abu Dhabi, narrowly making the cut before finishing seven shots behind surprise winner Gary Stal.
The former US Open champion is hopeful of an improved performance at Doha this week, at a course where he has only made the cut once in his past five appearances.
“It's not one that's been the kindest to me (Doha), and I’ve been figuring it out the last couple of days,” the world No 5 added. “It's been more about getting my lines off the tee, and I feel like there's a lot of run-outs and carries.
“It’s been a good couple of days' work on the back of what turned out to be a good tournament last week momentum wise – I was definitely a little rusty, a little shaky with my game in the first couple of days.
“On Sunday I put together a good round, so it was nice to finish the tournament strongly. A bogey-free 65 is something you can definitely feel a bit of confidence from. I’m looking forward to taking that momentum into this week.”
Family ties
The 34-year-old has been paired with Ryder cup team-mate Stephen Gallacher and former Masters Tournament winner Charl Schwartzel, whose wife Rosalind is South African-born Rose’s second cousin, in the first round on Wednesday.
He said: “My goal is to keep the ball out of the wind as much as possible, keep the flight down and just play a solid first round. Like last week, I think you're going to see some good scoring if the wind drops.
“Last week I just didn't play well but mentally I really stuck with it and did well to make the cut. I shouldn't have made the cut but did well to and turned in a good result from the way I played.”
Watch the first round of the Qatar Masters live on Sky Sports 4 on Wednesday morning, with sessions starting at 6:30am and 11:00am.
