Things would be a little different today but, at that stage, the nearest player in age to the by then 18-year-old Justin was the 23-year-old Steve Webster. “I didn’t fit in then any more than I had on the amateur scene,” says Rose.
With regard to that amateur reference, he had been hugely successful at an early age whilst all the time ruffling feathers among his older rivals. “There was a bit of jealousy in there,” he admits, before adding a revealing, “the banter of 18-year-olds was maybe a bit much for a 12-year-old.”
Those 21 missed cuts are long in the past but there is no question that they did as much as anything else to define the player.
From this distance, Rose says that they were good for him as a person if not obviously so good for his golf.
On the personal front, he has never developed any kind of an ego, for which he is grateful. He remains endlessly humble and has no great craving for attention: “Golf, rather than fame, has always been my driving force.”
It is a state of affairs to have had people wondering how on earth he and Ian Poulter could ever have become such great mates. Yet, to no small extent, it was this unlikely alliance which helped Rose to recover his shattered confidence.
The two shared a room on the Challenge Tour – Europe's second-tier circuit – and Rose would sit by, mesmerised, as Poulter would turn on some outrageously loud music in the mornings “ and bully himself into playing well.”
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