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TURKISH AIRLINES OPEN

November 6, 2019

Justin Rose

Antalya, Turkey

CLARE BODEL: Welcome back to Turkey and to the Montgomerie Maxx Royal.

JUSTIN ROSE: Thank you very much.

CLARE BODEL: You obviously have had many honours in your career. You're already part of a small number of players who have won multiple Rolex Series Events, but this year you have a chance to make a little bit of history by becoming the first player in almost two decades to win three consecutive European Tour events. How does that feel?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, that's obviously a really fun position to be in. It's obviously come about because I've had two wonderful experiences -- well, many wonderful experiences here in Turkey, dating back to 2012, when Ahmet and everybody here involved brought eight of the best players in the world to play sort of a match-play-style tournament.

It's been fantastic to see the tournament go from strength-to-strength. Obviously the last two seasons, it's been a huge honour, having won both of those, and obviously I never defended a tournament in my career.

Obviously last year was a first for me to defend and now it offers me the opportunity to go three in a row, and I think I'm in great company, right, with is it Seve and -- well offers me the opportunity to be in great company with Seve, Faldo and Ian Woosnam, so illustrious company. Definitely a focus for me and an inspiration and something I'm going to enjoy trying to achieve.

CLARE BODEL: You played here in 2013. What are your thoughts on this course and how have you enjoyed being back this week?

JUSTIN ROSE: It's been great to be back at the Maxx Royal. Obviously the course at Regnum Carya has been very good to me, but you're right, I played really well here in 2013 and really enjoyed the golf course.

The guys that have won here, Victor Dubuisson and Brooks Koepka back in the day, guys that hit it a long way and I think the key is to play the par 5s well. The par 5s tend to be reachable. If you can have a good week with the driver and get the ball off the tee really well, that will offer the opportunity to make those birdies on the par 5s.

Generally in Turkey we see low scoring because the weather has been generally fantastic, and I think the key is going to be playing the par 5s well.

CLARE BODEL: You were the first player to defend a Rolex Series title last year. What are your memories of that?

JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, memories, it became a little messy down the stretch. I bogeyed 18 and missed a relatively short putt to win. The 18th green was a treacherous and slopey green, and obviously that green took its toll on Haotong in the playoff. He 3-putted from fairly short range, and clearly disappointing for him because he's a player that I root for. I think he's a fantastic player, a great prospect and he's a good friend.

To win that way was not really how I wanted to win, but a win is a win, and it was nice to obviously get that victory and to go back-to-back, and it was a special week. I had my mother here, as well, and just again, kind of had a lot of support from people here in Turkey. Having played well here, I kind of feel like a lot of the people here kind of have really supported me really, really nicely. It was fun to win again.

Q. How would you rate your season as a whole so far, and how would it change were you to win this week and the coming weeks?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think my season's been slightly disappointing for the most part. I think that I've sort of struggled with a little bit of the rhythm of the schedule and just various things. I've basically been trying to fix my game on the road a little bit, just the way weeks off have been.

So yeah, I've battled with that a little bit. But at the same time, I've won this year, so you can never really turn your nose up at that. If I was to win this week, a multiple-win season is certainly never, never, never a bad year.

I think the run of the last few events I'm going to play offer the opportunity to really turn it around. I think for me, that's going to be very important going into 2020, as we all know, is going to be a big year. To close out this year, I think is very, very key in terms of one, punctuating a decent year, but two, setting up a great year next year.

Q. What will you do differently next year with your schedule?
JUSTIN ROSE: I think I took all of February off this year, so I think that that was trying to be really fresh for the major championship season. I think next year, I won't do that. I think I'm just going to try and roll my way through the year, and just do little and often.

So not really take a huge off-season, but just build mini-breaks in throughout the year and keep things ticking along and try to keep form ticking along.

I think to focus on a major championship as a block of two months, is too long, anyway, to try to focus on. I think you've just got to, yeah, so basically I think just -- lots more mini-breaks without a big break. I think the big break ruined my momentum this year a little bit. I didn't come out of it feeling how I wanted to.

Q. You must be really excited to try to get back to Tokyo for the Olympics, and also, The Ryder Cup. So how does that change things for you, and will you start playing more on The European Tour, and will you be playing Abu Dhabi to start your season?
JUSTIN ROSE: Next year is a huge year, as you say, and building Olympics right in the middle of everything, as well. If you want to be there for the Opening Ceremony, which right now I'd encourage anybody who is playing in the Olympics to be in the Opening Ceremony. That was one of the highlights for me was walking out with Team GB. If you want to be part of that, you have to leave on the Thursday after The Open Championship.

So you play The Open, have three days off and you leave for Tokyo. So it really is quite an intense time of year, so I think we all have to be very cognisant of our schedules before we get to that point in the summer.

Ryder Cup, clearly you want to be fresh and ready. Next year might be the year where you can't be all things to all people. You might just have to focus on prioritise your goals, and for me, probably the Olympics is certainly going to be a huge part of what I prioritise next year. The rest might just have to be a byproduct of that mind-set. I think to try and achieve everything on every tour next year could be a tricky proposition.

Good golf covers all bets. So that's going to be my focus is just to really take care of my game and play well where I play, and if I do that, clearly if you play well in the majors, the World Golf Championships, that feeds a great season on both tours.

So really, that's going to be the majority of my focus next year.

Q. Will you play Abu Dhabi?
JUSTIN ROSE: I'm not going to play Abu Dhabi.

Q. You just spoke about the Olympics, and a lot of people were at the ZoZo Championship in Japan. Did you hear anything about the golf course -- and with the hot weather -- how stressful is that going to be?
JUSTIN ROSE: I haven't heard too much about the golf course. I have a friend -- actually, my next door neighbor at Albany where I live, him and a group of guys are going to play the golf course where the Olympics is going to be hosted, and they try to get as much information from them as possible there on this side. So they are going to come back with a whole pack of info for me, but more so, what type of grass to expect.

As you say, it's going to be hot, and I imagine it's going to be bermudagrass, which will be a very different proposition and challenge from playing links golf the couple weeks prior to that.

The switch and transition between Open Championship style golf to incredibly hot golf with bermudagrass is going to be definitely a challenge for a lot of players.

It's going to be -- the key is going to be having most of your preparation done ahead of time, and then try and click back into the mind-set as and when needed.

But then, yeah, the four-and-a-half-month block, I'm going to try and treat it, like I said, just try and take mini-breaks. Not try to take a big break anywhere in between and just try to keep the game rolling.

I felt like this year, from a roulette point of view, for example, I was trying to play very specific numbers. Next year, I might just cover the board a little more and hopefully hit. That's kind of the mentality a little bit. Just keep the game flowing and ticking along, keep my practice going and just try to keep my level at a decent level all the way through rather than really trying to peak and trough, which I have done in the past. Really try to really identify certain events and really focus on them.

But because everything happens in such a condensed period of time now, it's hard to kind of get the up-and-downs, the peaks and the valleys in such a condensed period. Whereas if you have maybe eight months to do that, you can peak and come back off a little bit and focus on the next objective. Like I said, my goal is going to be just to try to keep a good level through it all and hope for the best.

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