Justin Rose is still competing for the very biggest trophies despite the fact that he’s closer to his 50th birthday than his 40th.
Rose has enjoyed a truly magnificent career, with 13 PGA Tour wins and 11 DP World Tour victories to his name.
The 45-year-old Englishman has also won an Olympic gold medal and the 2013 US Open Championship.
Justin Rose also holds legendary status due to his Ryder Cup record.
It’s actually fair to argue that he easily could have won a lot more majors throughout his career to date, and he deserves more than the one he currently has.
The Englishman certainly hasn’t written off his chances of winning another major. He’s undoubtedly capable of adding one more to his trophy cabinet.
Justin Rose suggests solution to stop golfers hitting their drivers so far
Justin Rose recently switched to McLaren irons, and we are still yet to see him play his best golf since making that change.
Justin Rose suggests a simple solution to stop golfers hitting their drivers so far
One key aspect of Rose’s resurgence over the past few years has been his driving.
The 45-year-old is still longer than average off the tee.
In 2026, he has averaged 306.7 yards with his driver, and it’s fair to say that he’s longer now than he was 20 years ago.
However, in spite of that help he has received with the technology, Rose thinks it would actually be really simple to dial back speed and distance.
“Golf still feels hard to me, so I don’t really know where to land on that,“ he said.
“I think the game’s changed. The athletes have changed. Like every youngster coming out now is 180-plus ball speed. Obviously some of that’s the golf ball. You can maybe mark up 5-mile-an-hour with equipment over the last ten years maybe, but the players are just encouraged to swing and play and hit in a different way than they were 20 years ago, I’d say.
“I think that’s been the biggest shift more than equipment. Now we’re kind of looking at how do we roll back the game because of the athletes that are coming into the sport? I don’t think it’s been an exponential kind of increase in technology or equipment. It’s been players are playing a little differently now for sure.
“I think maybe the driver is quite forgiving. It’s big. Guys can kind of maybe hit a little harder. Maybe if the driver head was smaller, that would kind of limit potentially some of the way we move at it potentially. There’s many ways to think about it.“
Justin Rose says whether he feels like a long hitter
“I don’t even want to get into that debate, to be honest with you, because I don’t know,” he said.
“Like I said, golf still feels hard. I’m still hitting it 20 yards ahead of a lot of guys and 20 yards behind a lot of other guys. That’s kind of how it’s felt my whole career. There’s always been guys longer than me, and I’ve always been longer than a bunch of other guys. That’s still how it feels.
“I’m relating myself always to my peer group, not necessarily to the environment. I’m trying to compete against guys, and everybody has the same opportunity.“
Making the driver head smaller and less forgiving would unquestionably make a difference.
Guys go full send when hitting their driver in this day and age because they are fully aware that off-center hits are not disastrous.
That would simply not be the case with smaller heads.
Justin Rose’s suggestion to combat speed and distance was one of the best and most simple that we’ve heard since the debate began a few years ago.
Whether the powers that be will take any notice of the Englishman’s comments remains to be seen, though.
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