He’s got a big job on his hands but Justin Rose cut a relaxed figure in the build up to this week’s BMW Masters in Shanghai as he prepares himself for a final push in his bid to become the European Tour’s No 1.
Rose, who won the Hong Kong Open three weeks ago, still has an outside chance of reeling in Rory McIlroy at the head of the Race to Dubai rankings with only this week’s event in China and the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next week to come.
Rose, the former US Open champion, currently trails the absent McIlroy by 865,699 points on the rankings but he could move into the top spot with victory at Lake Malaren Golf Club on Sunday. A second place could, potentially, be enough for him to take pole position depending on the performances of Danny Willett, Shane Lowry and Louis Oosthuizen, the three other players presently ahead of him.
Rose was Europe’s No 1 in 2007 and the 35-year-old has found a rich vein of form as he aims for a grandstand finish to the season. He has not finished outside the top six in his last four appearances on the European Tour and his job description for the next fortnight is pretty straightforward. “For me it’s fairly simple: I need to play well for the next two weeks,” he said. “I feel very good about my game. Getting back from Hong Kong, it was more a case of relaxing and recharging the batteries before a bit of travelling and one final last-ditch effort to try and overtake Rory and Danny and a couple of the other guys ahead of me.”
Marc Warren, Stephen Gallacher and Richie Ramsay make up the Scottish contingent in an event that boasts a purse of over £4.5 million.
Elsewhere, Catriona Matthew, the former Women’s British Open champion from North Berwick, has been called up to the Ladies European Tour team for The Queens, a three-day match in China against a side made up of players from the Japanese, Korean and Australian Professional Golf Tours.
Matthew, a veteran of eight Solheim Cup campaigns for Europe down the season, always revels in the cut-and-thrust of team competition and the 46-year-old Scot will be a valuable asset for the Ladies European Tour squad that is captained by Dame Laura Davies.
Matthew will be joined in the nine-woman team by Karine Icher, Gwladys Nocera and Melissa Reid, who were all part of the European aide that lost out to the USA in September’s Solheim Cup.
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