Facing the most important drive of his life, he found the centre of the fairway in "Hoganesque" fashion, leaving him almost the exact same yardage to the flag as the previous hole. The poignancy of the moment and the historical similarities with Ben Hogan’s famous one-iron approach to the final green in 1950 were not lost on Rose.
"When I walked over the hill and saw my drive sitting perfectly in the middle of the fairway, with the sun coming out, it was kind of almost fitting. And I just felt like at that point it was a good iron shot on to the green, two putts, like Hogan did, and possibly win this championship," he said.
Rose’s approach was perfectly struck and never left the flag, releasing just over the green into a good lie. "I felt like I did myself justice and probably put enough of a good swing where Ben Hogan might have thought it was a decent shot too.” Rose said of his four-iron approach.
Using a 3-wood to putt the ball through the fringe, Rose left himself with the least stressful shot of his final round – a tap-in, followed by a tearful salute to the heavens in memory of his late father Ken, who passed away 11 years ago.
"I've holed a putt to win a major championship hundreds of thousands of times on the putting green at home. Pretty happy it was a two-incher on the last!" he quipped.
Fittingly, the championship’s final act would come down to Mickelson. After not being able to convert an extremely difficult putt down and across the ridge for birdie on the 17th, Mickelson came to the final hole needing to do what the entire field had failed to do on the weekend – birdie the 18th – to force a play-off.
After finding the rough with his tee shot and forcing an iron out and around a tree to the apron fronting the green, Mickelson’s pitch for birdie slid past the hole to confirm a first major for Rose, the first for an Englishman since Nick Faldo at the 1996 Masters and the first English US Open champion since Tony Jacklin in 1970.
An emotional Rose celebrated the moment in the clubhouse with wife Kate and caddie Mark Fulcher and reflected on his father’s contribution to finally realising his dream of a major championship.
"I texted my mum late last night and I said, 'Let's do it for dad' tomorrow. And she just simply texted me back, 'That would be fantastic'. And I did get hold of her after my round and we both were in floods of tears speaking to each other. She misses him immensely, I miss him immensely. And I thought today was just a fitting time in which I could honour him by looking up."
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