Justin Rose keeping focus on job at hand in latest pursuit of Major success at Masters

After missing out on his dream of winning The Open Championship last year, Justin Rose spoke of his desire for another big-stage moment.

It may be more than 250 days since the Englishman finished in a tie for second at Royal Troon, but at the Masters Tournament - the next Major Championship – he is in the thick of it again.

In his 20th start at Augusta National, Rose is the man to catch in the clubhouse after following up an opening seven-under-par 65 with a patient 71 on Friday to reach eight under through 36 holes.

While he couldn’t replicate the same levels as he did on his way to claiming the first round lead for a fifth time, he will have been satisfied with his day’s work as he bettered his second-round scoring average at the Masters by three shots.

At a course which has a record of rewarding those who start fast, Rose is in an enviable position.

"Sometimes it's hard to follow a low round with another one," he said. "Just the nature of it sometimes.

"But I feel like if you're playing good golf, you're playing good golf. And I feel like I wasn't pinned to yesterday's round and I wasn't pinned to the leaderboard and I wasn't pinned to leading this golf tournament.

"I was pretty focused on the job at hand."

Whether Rose does win this week or not, his legacy in the game is secure.

A Major winner, former world number one, Olympic champion and Ryder Cup stalwart, there is not much the 44-year-old has not achieved.

But if he was to claim a first Green Jacket over the weekend, it would amplify those prior feats.

Despite being a two-time Masters runner-up, most notably losing in a play-off to Sergio Garcia in 2017, and having two top tens so far this season on the PGA TOUR, Rose was not being discussed as among the pre-tournament favourites.

Instead, defending champion Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy – in pursuit of completing the career Grand Slam - were the subject of most of the column inches in advance of the season’s opening major.

With fellow major champion Bryson DeChambeau and last year's runner-up Ludvig Åberg also among those to make strong starts, Rose is relishing the prospect of a weekend battle against leading lights of the game.

"That's the company that I expect to keep, and that's where I have tried to be my whole career," he said.

"That's where I've been for a lot of my career. So I've been a top 10 player in the world for a decade or more.

"So it is nice to be back in that mix, a hundred percent."

Such is his record over the past two decades at Augusta, Rose came into the week confident he still had the ability to one day be victorious.

And with a Ryder Cup too later in the year to throw into the mix, there is plenty of incentive.

"I don't put the extra pressure on myself, if I'm honest with you," he said. "It's a huge goal for me, and I'm only going to make the team by playing good golf.

"But you've got to get to Bethpage playing well enough to contribute to the team. I'm just focusing on me and my game and playing well enough to be at that level."

As he highlights, that is for the future.

For now, on the evidence of his opening two rounds, Rose is unlikely to go away as he continues to knock on the door for the sport’s biggest titles.