Justin Rose buoyed by performance of European Ryder Cup stars
Sunday 9 September 2018 02:02, UK
Justin Rose was encouraged by the heavy presence of the European Ryder Cup team high on the leaderboard after he claimed the 54-hole lead at the BMW Championship.
Rose would become world No 1 for the first time in his glittering career with a victory in Philadelphia, and he heads into the final round with a one-stroke advantage over Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele after carding a six-under 64.
Tommy Fleetwood provided a further boost for European captain Thomas Bjorn after firing back-to-back 62s to get within two of the lead, while Open champion Francesco Molinari is only four off the pace after matching Rose's 64.
Jon Rahm, Alex Noren and Henrik Stenson have also shown signs of good form at Aronimink, and Rose believes the signs are good for Europe's bid to regain the Ryder Cup at Le Golf National later this month.
"It's good to see the boys playing well and having some form and showing that they're fresh and ready," said Rose, who roared to the turn in 29 before parring every hole on the back nine to remain on 17 under.
"They're still ready to play a lot of golf and to play good golf at this time of year, and I think everyone is grinding pretty hard to get through this run.
"Rory chose to take a week off [at The Nothern Trust] and he could be fresher than most. I've also had maybe a little bit more time off than some of the other guys. I think it's interesting to see how many on each team are playing the week before in Atlanta, and that will kind of give us an idea of what team will be fresher than the other team.
"You don't really want a fresh team, you want a team playing well. That's the most important thing, so it's good to see those boys playing well."
There is widespread speculation that the third event of the FedExCup Play-Offs could be reduced to 54 holes with bad weather forecast over the next three days, and officials scheduled the final round to begin at 7am local time with players again going out in threeballs in a two-tee start.
"I'll take the two-day washout, of course," joked Rose. "But I can't sleep on that thought. I've got to be ready to play and come out in the morning with my full game-face mode.
"You could start to feel the weather coming in and getting darker. I kind of had the feel there's some big weather coming, and I said to my caddie, 'How about tomorrow?' I just had to get through today and we'll have a round of golf to play tomorrow in our minds.
"But absolutely, I was trying to make the putt on 18 to make sure I was ahead of the field."
Fleetwood, meanwhile, was delighted with the way he has fought back from his disappointing opening 71 as he followed up Friday's 62 with another eight-under card which saw him race to 15 under and into a share of third.
"Obviously I've hit it great for two days," said the Englishman. "I drove it really well on Thursday and just didn't put the rest of the game together.
"My wedges were poor and so were my irons, and I didn't hole any putts. I kept driving it the same the last few days and my irons have got a little bit better. I've missed maybe one green over two days, so I've been really solid there.
"When you start feeling confident with the long-irons, your game is coming together. It's been a good two days and I'll try and do it again tomorrow."
Early start alert: Due to the threat of bad weather, live final-round coverage of the BMW Championship will now begin at 1pm on Sunday. Red button on Sky Sports Golf, and also on Sky Sports Mix.
