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BUICK CHAMPIONSHIP

August 25, 2005

Justin Rose

CROMWELL, CONNECTICUT

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Justin Rose, thank you for joining us. Great round today, 65, 5 under here in the first round of the Buick Championship. Get started with some opening comments on a good first day for you.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, exactly. I'm delighted with that. You know, a couple things I was especially pleased with out there was, you know, I hit every fairway and didn't make a bogey. Yeah, it was a solid round.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Talk about your season so far. I know that you'd like to get in the winner's circle. Just looking at your statistics and your finishes, the thing you really need to do is put four good rounds together. You've had some good rounds, but you'd really like to put four good rounds together.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, exactly. I made a lot of cuts. It's been yeah, it's just been slow. This year I haven't sort of put everything together. It doesn't seem the game hasn't quite clicked, although every week I see it up, I feel good about my game, but haven't quite been able to sort of get that confidence and momentum going to sort of really translate into some good results.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Good final round in Reno last week.

JUSTIN ROSE: Third round in Reno, 65. The last couple weeks, 22nd, 22nd, 15th, so I feel like there's a little bit of momentum building.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy about everything. It's been a slow year, but I'm feeling good about potentially turning it around.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Questions.

Q. Anything in particular that's held you back? Can't find the fairway, putting off?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, just a little bit of everything really. I think putting, I feel like I haven't taken my chances as much as I'd like. Everyone seems to blame their putting.

Yeah, I can't quite put my finger on it, you know, but I think a lot of it's just confidence and momentum. Once you start seeing your name on the leaderboard more regularly, that breeds more and more confidence.

Q. How tough has it been to put four good rounds together?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, you know, I've definitely been in a couple situations this year when I've had the opportunity to have a good big week. Put a little bit too much pressure on myself because you want that result too much. You know, you don't let it happen. So that's the trick, is to get out of your own way. When you are playing good, just let it happen. Earlier on in the year, that's definitely what happened.

Q. How high is the rough? How fast is the course playing in comparison to your practice round?

JUSTIN ROSE: Rough hasn't really grown a lot. Rough's pretty tough. I feel like the rough's quite uneven, so you can get really a lot of nasty lies, especially around the greens. The ball seems to be sinking down. So the rough's tricky, for sure, although it's not overly long.

The course today, the greens were fairly receptive. I think this course has a tendency to get firm pretty quickly. I'm glad I made the most of my early round anyway put it that way. I think the course is only going to get tougher as we get closer to Sunday afternoon.

Q. Wind picking up at all?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, there's enough breeze out there to make it tricky, for sure.

Q. What happened to you from 19 to now? Was it a physical thing, mental thing? You burst onto the scene.

JUSTIN ROSE: Well, I had one good week. Obviously, at the British Open I had a dream week. You know, obviously turned pro right after that. At the age of 17, at the time I thought I was ready. I think I was ready to start my learning process. I was ready to turn pro and to start cutting my teeth, but I certainly wasn't ready to sort of go out there and win and compete every week, week in and week out. That's what a lot of people expected of me.

It took me a few years to find my feet. You know, 2002, I broke through and won four times. Again, I just feel like I'm now sort of trying to recapture that momentum and that mindset.

Q. Anything special for your 25th birthday?

JUSTIN ROSE: No. I was playing I was meant to be going to Las Vegas with a bunch of my friends coming from England. At the time I hadn't played great the previous month, so I figured I had to get my head down and start playing again. I played a Warrick Hills that week. I made a 2 on 17 on my birthday, which was pretty cool. The crowd sang me happy birthday, which was nice. That was about the highlight of my birthday.

Q. If had you not turned pro at 17, what do you think you would have done?

JUSTIN ROSE: Skateboard or something. I don't know.

No, you know, I was always going to turn pro. It wasn't an issue. Since I've been this big, I was going to be a professional golfer. There's been nothing else ever sort of got in the way of that. That was the only decision in my mind. So I don't know.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: You started on the backside, did most of your damage on 10 through 18. If we could go through those birdies starting on 12.

JUSTIN ROSE: 12, I made a nice birdie there, drove it quite a long way down there. Lob wedge into the green, hit it to about six feet, made the putt.

13, par 5, hit driver, 4 iron. Got up onto the green and just rolled down into the rough, managed to up and down that one.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: 15?

JUSTIN ROSE: 15, obviously the par 4, hit it just sort of on the left rolled up the left side of the green, just near the hazard. Up and downed that.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Driver?

JUSTIN ROSE: Hit driver, yeah, had a crack at that.

Q. How close did you get them on those two holes?

JUSTIN ROSE: Putt wise? 13, about four feet. 12 feet at 15.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Then 18, next birdie?

JUSTIN ROSE: I hit driver, 6 iron onto the right fringe, chipped in there from about 20 feet.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Then on the front side, the par 5, No. 6.

JUSTIN ROSE: Driver, 5 wood into the left green side bunker, splashed out to two feet.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Only two par 5's. Obviously important to take care of those and make birdies. You did.

JUSTIN ROSE: That's what I felt like I did today. You know, I birdied 12, which was playing short. I birdied 13, which was the par 5. Obviously, I birdied 15, which is a short par 4, then the other par 5. I feel like I took advantage of the so called birdie holes out there, which is what you need to do if you're going to shoot this score.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Any good up and downs that kept your round going?

JUSTIN ROSE: No. I was never really out of position. I missed a couple of greens. When I did miss the green, I wasn't in that rough. Actually, I made a good up and down on 16 where I had a nasty lie on the edge. I was pretty close to the flag, I just short sided myself. Had a tough lie there, but managed to chip it stiff.

Q. What is life on the tour like as a single guy?

JUSTIN ROSE: I'm kind of single. My girlfriend comes out here with me, which is good. She's an English girl. Been together three years. Not single in the true sense of the word. I enjoy it. It's a good bunch of young guys out on TOUR. I'm enjoying it. This is my first full year. Last year I played a lot. But I'm really enjoying myself over here.

Q. Lot more of the European guys coming over, Darren.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think there's a lot more Europeans on the TOUR over here at the moment. That certainly obviously makes when there's more familiar faces, you feel a little more at ease or more at home. I've made good friends with a lot of the guys, Hank Keeney, Charles Howell, a lot of the American boys as well. It's good.

Q. Time to adapt when you're changing tours? Quick, take a year?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I felt I adapted pretty quick last year. Finished top 70 on the Money List from the number of events I played. I was satisfied with that first year. Obviously, I was hoping that to be a big springboard for this year. Hasn't quite happened yet.

From this point in the season onwards, I played all these tournaments last year. Up until now, played a lot of tournaments I hadn't played before. I think that's the biggest difference, really the first year out you play a lot of new courses, you don't know the courses. The second, third year you pretty much played all the tournaments on the schedule. That makes a difference. You begin to learn which tournaments you like, which suit you, which don't suit you. You tailor your schedule to that.

Q. (Indiscernible) golf in Scotland and England, compared to the TPC courses here?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, but you play a pretty wide range style courses in Europe. Obviously, links golf we play once a year. I don't feel necessarily you know, I think myself being British, I grew up a lot playing amateur golf playing on links courses. When you play on the European Tour, there is no links golf. That's one reason why the Europeans don't do as good as people think they should at the British Open. It's as foreign to us as it is to the American players.

I think we tend to play in a wider range of conditions: cold, wet, windy. That's probably the biggest difference. But the all new courses seem to be built the same way in Europe and in America.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Justin Rose, thanks.

End of FastScripts.

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