PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 12, 2026

Justin Rose

Aronimink Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Justin Rose is with us here at the 108th PGA Championship. Justin, welcome back to Aronimink and your 24th PGA Championship. You've obviously got quite the history here. What's it like to be back and what have you seen from the golf course so far?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, wow, 24. That's probably the major I played the most then, is it? I don't know. It feels like it. Great to be back in the Philly area, obviously Aronimink's been a course that's been kind to me in the past. It's undergone a few changes over the last 15, 20 years or whatever it's been that we've been coming here, but still wonderful golf course. I loved being out there today.

I only saw nine holes so far, but just trying to reacquaint myself with, yeah, with the nuances of it really. It's just a beautiful old school track. It's clearly been modernized a bit in the recent years, but still has great character and it's going to be a lot of fun to play this week.

THE MODERATOR: That's great. We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Everybody that's come in here and Greg has told them how many majors they have has been surprised at the number, but obviously you've been here a few. At this point how do you regard majors differently at age 45 than age 35 or 25?

JUSTIN ROSE: Well, I regard them as my goals, my main objectives, but I regard them as more kind of coveted now because you never quite know how many you've got left, especially at the peak of your game or especially at the level where you think you can still win them. So for sure they're huge opportunities to kind of bolster a good career, for sure.

So, yeah, they're hugely important and they kind of get most of my attention during the season for sure.

Q. Are you a nostalgia kind of guy, do you take a moment to look around after you leave each one or are you focused more on the next one?

JUSTIN ROSE: I feel like you're nostalgic if you have a reason to be nostalgic, like if you're part of history or if you played well enough to be close to being part of that history. I think then you start to understand the gravity of it. But I think just when you're there striving to be part of that history and it doesn't quite happen, I think you're quite willing to just move on to the next one.

Q. You've had a limited amount of refinement time with the new irons between majors. How are they feeling, and do you believe you can contend to win this week with those irons?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, absolutely. I think people, I think, you know, I've played so many different sets of irons in the last five years that I just don't think that it's a big deal. I've been working hard on this project for 18 months now, and it's kind of like it's a full wish list of all of the things I would like to see in a set of irons.

So from that point of view I'm really enjoying -- I've enjoyed the process of getting to this point. Yeah, I would love to play great this week with them. I can play great this week with them. The fact I haven't played great the last two weeks has got nothing to do with the irons either.

The testing process is an interesting one. You go through it, but not until you put something in play do you kind of have the time or the real ability to get comfortable with it. So, yeah, it might take a little bit of time to get fully, fully, fully comfortable just looking at something different, but yeah, it's been a very measured approach and something I'm very excited about and something I've really, really enjoyed doing.

Q. I was going to ask that, given the amount of time you spent on it, does it feel like a real sense of achievement to be here at a major championship with those irons in your bag, and crucially has it got Lando's seal of approval yet?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think -- I was going to use 'em in February, and we weren't quite ready to go. Then obviously try to target what would be a really good week to do it. You're not going to do it the week of a major championship, so obviously the week of Miami seemed like a really good week to launch them because Miami Grand Prix was in town, PGA TOUR was in town, it just seemed like the right week.

Everyone -- the marketing team, the refinement process off the testing, everything just began to lean itself towards that being a good date. But we've been close for a long time and ready to go pretty much for a long time. I remember there was talk about maybe even putting them in play for Pebble Beach. So it's definitely been something that I've working on for a long time behind the scenes.

Yeah, now it's just like get after it. Put 'em in play, I'm comfortable with them; the technology behind them is wonderful. I'm seeing more performance in my range sessions, the spin and the launch and the speed and all the stuff I'm seeing on the range is performance, and I'm seeing the performance.

So whether I take it out onto the golf course, there's 14 other clubs, 14 clubs in my bag, six or seven of them are irons, there's a lot of other things that I need to do to play well. So my focus is on all areas of my game, and I'm excited to compete and play well this week, yeah.

Q. Rory was in here a couple of hours ago and said that he had, he liked this place, although he had only been here four times. But he did hint that it was the sort of course where driving was less important, or the accuracy off the tee was less important. I think he described it as a bash course, a bit of a bish, bash course.

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, that's a shame to hear that because that's not what a Donald Ross course is designed to be or historically has been. So I think that that's the modernization of the golf course a little bit as it's been cleaned out a little bit and lengthened a little bit. And there's definitely some bunkers at 310 or 305 that if you can carry those the fairway does get much wider. So from that point of view I think if you have that gear I think there's a lot of players in the field that that is the case, it's not just a going to suit particularly Rory, it's going to suit a lot of guys that can carry the ball 300 plus. But, yeah, the rough's definitely creeping up though to the point where you got to be respectful I think. I think two weeks ago the rough wasn't up. They have really worked hard I believe from what Fooch tells me anyway, to kind of get the rough growing. It's a different type of rough actually it's a very thick rough it's almost like a Kikuyu. It feels like very, it's like a very dense rooty type of grass. So, yeah, I think there's a little bit of respect needed to make sure you are hitting the fairways. The fairways are generous, but you still need to be on 'em.

Q. How many competitive rounds have you played here?

JUSTIN ROSE: I played two times? Well, I'm not even sure. Did we come back here in 2011? The year after? So I won in 2010 and 2018, I don't remember being here in 2011 but I probably was. So I would imagine I played whatever that is, 12 competitive rounds.

Q. I appreciate you said that your results over the last couple weeks weren't necessarily all to do with the irons. I just wondered what the difficulty is like with practice, balancing sort of getting used to those irons but then not ignoring other areas of your game that might sort of fall as a consequence of that?

JUSTIN ROSE: Listen, I think after The Masters I went home and there was a lot to absorb there, that was a tough loss. I think, to be honest with you, the first two weeks back have been just about finding my feet again, to be honest with you. So I really don't feel like I've been sort of neglecting any part of my game. I don't feel like there's been a lot of other distractions to other elements of my game. I just think that there's cycles of form and there's cycles of things you got to work through mentally. And I feel like I've done a nice job of that now and I feel like this week I feel like the enthusiasm and the energy's coming back to kind of want to compete. Obviously you want to compete well every single week but there's sometimes it's just different dynamics that are going on behind the scenes that make it just a little bit more than just ticking boxes and yeah sometimes a little bit deeper than that. But I feel like I said I feel like this week I feel just a little bit more switched on and ready to go.

Q. Between your performances at Aronimink and also your major championship victory and Merion you seem to like golf in the Philly area, what is it about this area and the courses specifically that you enjoy and also the pretty passionate sports fans here as well?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, for sure. I think the whole area feels very familiar to the part of England I leave in. Very leafy, very green. Even this time of year I feel like the spring here is very much like the spring in England right now. So it feels very familiar from that point of view. I think some of the golf course design in this area is sort of reminiscent of sort of some of the courses in Surrey that I've kind of grown up playing. I like the old-school golf. I like old-school tests of golf. I like the design and the architecture of these classic old courses, to be honest with you. So yeah, I've fortunately done well on these style of tracks and therefore kind of built a nice rapport with Philly, and the crowd have kind of sensed that. And I do, I get great support out there because of that. So it's been a lot of fun to kind of always come back to this part of the country and play.

Q. With Aronimink specifically it's been a little bit since you've last seen the course. You know what it looks like, is there any part of your preparation that you do a little bit extra work on leading up to Thursday?

JUSTIN ROSE: Always around the greens. The greens are very slopey here, obviously just familiarizing yourself with potential pin placements, the angles that you need to kind of approach those pin placements from. Where you can and can't miss or where you can and can't get the ball up-and-down from. So just sort of really kind of remembering the nuance of certain pin placements. Some greens the four pins are pretty basic, hit it in the middle of the green you've got pretty much good angles towards pins, but there's just other holes where there's just maybe one or two characteristics that make a big difference on how you approach a certain pin placement. So that's kind of what I've been trying to remember really today. And that's why I chose to walk the course today with a wedge and putter more than I did actually playing the course. I felt like the front nine -- tomorrow I'm going to go play the back nine. I think the back nine's a much sterner test. It's obviously been lengthened out a lot. I feel like the front nine is where you got to go and make your score. So I wanted to pay a lot of attention to my work around the greens and all the angles to certain pins today on the front nine. But tomorrow definitely take the clubs out on the back nine, because I think it's more of a ball-striking test on the back nine.

Q. We are very close to Merion here. So I wonder if those memories come back to you this week, and what are the memories you treasure from that time?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, so Merion is very close. I'm fortunate to -- I try to come back to this area and I try to come back to Merion once every year. I normally come back in the fall. Fall golf in this part of the world is incredible. I think it's some of the best in the world. When the trees are turning, the weather's still fantastic up here late into October. So yeah, it's one of my favorite places to play. And obviously Merion will be a place in my close to my heart forever. But yeah, you have Merion Golf Club, which obviously I think sits, I'm biased, at the very top. But you have Aronimink, you have Philly Cricket Club, you have so many really good golf courses in this area that you could spend days and days and days traveling around this area and playing great golf.

Q. Among the majors, what makes the PGA Championship unique and exciting for you?

JUSTIN ROSE: PGA Championship, I would say what makes it unique is the strength of the field. The amount of players that are in the top 100 in the world is the most out of all the four majors. I think that it's played on classic tests of golf that are set up to challenge us, but also allow us to play golf. Whether it's 8-under par, 10-under par, 16-under par, doesn't really matter too much. It's about just a good test of golf on a strong golf course. So from that point of view I think it's, it has its character. And, yeah, listen, it's one of the four majors, and if you want to achieve amazing things in this game you have to lift all four majors. So it's everybody here, it's a huge goal.

Q. Just to torture the iron theme a little longer. You mentioned earlier that you changed clubs multiple times in the past few years. Would you be able to put a ballpark figure on how many times you've changed your irons and typically what the adjustment period would be just for the layman's understanding of that.

JUSTIN ROSE: I've probably, in the last five years, maybe used eight sets maybe, I would say. Across maybe four or five different brands. But I'm not risk averse. Like, I think if there's an opportunity to be better I'm going to take it. At Augusta I threw in a 4-iron the day before because it's like I think I can hit my 4-iron a little bit higher. So I just, I threw in a new 4-iron because I just felt like there was an opportunity to do something a little bit different with that club that week. So I'm always on the front foot. I'm not really stuck in my ways with equipment. But at the same time I've also had a wish list I've also had things I know work for me, and I had things that I would like to see in a set of irons that have stopped me, you know, playing one set of irons for a long, long time. So that's what I'm trying to achieve now is like over the course of the last five, six years everything I've learned about playing different clubs and trying to find the right things for me I've tried to bring to this new approach with the McLaren irons, like all the kind of the way I like to see the club, the way I like to see the toe, the shaping of them. What where I like the CG, where I like the offset. Where I like the grooves. Graduating the grooves from the wedges, 9s, 8s, into the rest of the clubs to try and regulate my spin out of wet lies or first cut. So there's been an awful lot of thought that have I've tried to pick and choose the best bits of all the things I've experienced over the last four, five years and try to bring it into one set of irons for me.

Q. I can imagine there's an excitement involved in any kind of innovation like that. But is there also a trepidation about disrupting what's been a very successful formula the last couple of seasons?

JUSTIN ROSE: No, because I don't think the formula is to do with any luck or superstition or stuck in my ways. It's about always pushing myself to be better. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here at 45. I'm not here at 45 because I've done the same things over the last 10 years. Because I'm always doing something different, I'm always pushing myself, I'm always finding one percents. That's what makes it exciting. That's the only reason I'm sitting here talking to you is because I've done a good job of grinding and finding improvement. Because obviously everyone out here is getting better. These young guys, the level on TOUR has just I think really gone so much stronger in the last 10 years. So if you're staying the same, you are going backwards.