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BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

September 17, 2011

Justin Rose

LEMONT, ILLINOIS

MARK STEVENS: Justin Rose, another great round in the 60s today. You have a four-shot lead going into the final round here at the BMW Championship. Do you want to talk about your round and then we'll have a few questions.
JUSTIN ROSE: Sure, yeah. Obviously delighted again to get it in the house under 70. I was aware today that it was a pretty tricky day and guys weren't going low. Guys played well in my group at times, but just obviously struggled to put a score on the board, and I was aware that was the situation pretty much throughout the field.
I guess that was it. Pretty happy to get it in where I was.

Q. Why was it a tricky day?
JUSTIN ROSE: Definitely the breeze. Breeze was up just enough to make it tricky clubbing yourself. There were a number of crosswind shots that if you didn't get the appropriate ball flight, the differential and the distance of the ball went was sort of 10 to 15 yards. Makes it very difficult to get it close to the flags or it makes your bad shots even worse, basically. For example, I tried to hold one up into the wind on 12 and held it up too much, came up 20 yards short, whereas if I hit 5-iron and hit it on the green I would have been back of the green, so that was like a 35-yard difference with one club depending on the ball flight.

Q. Could you give us just for laughs the boys' trip last week, who those guys are? Apparently you do this annually and when you usually do it and where all you guys played and what you did?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, well, it's called the J.R. Challenge, my namesake. We play for a little trophy. But really it's just a good excuse to get together with my oldest friends, guys I've known since I was about ten years old, guys who -- they'd be the guys that you'd call up if you ever needed something, English guys. They've known me through thick and thin, they've known me before I turned pro, just your real hard-core true friends.
It's nice to get that with them with them once a year. I don't really talk to them much during the year, but we get together once a year and it's just like old times. And the idea is we've done it in Florida, we used it as my bachelor party in Vegas one year, did it in the Bahamas. It's six, seven years going now.

Q. Did you play golf at Long Island?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, played golf on Long Island. We went to Manhattan one night, watched the tennis, had a night out, played four rounds of golf in six days, and that was it, yeah, good fun. Good preparation, I guess.

Q. Where did you play?
JUSTIN ROSE: Played Sebonack, National, Garden City Men's Club and Friars Head. It was a pretty dodgy rotation. (Laughter.)

Q. Obviously you guys come out here and you play to win all the time, and if you're able to win tomorrow, how much would it mean to win one of these FedExCup Playoff events?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think I'd have to regard it as a step up in my career for sure. I think they mean a lot. I think the jump that they give you and what they ultimately give you the chance to play for is incredibly significant. I'm aware that if I win I go to third. We've heard about being in the all-important top 5 going into Atlanta, so it would certainly be a huge win at the right time.
I feel like my other two victories on the PGA TOUR have both been what I would class, being biased, but they're big events, but certainly this would be right up there with them.

Q. What is the approach with a four-stroke lead?
JUSTIN ROSE: You know, I've been there a little bit last year, had a good run, one won, lost one when I was in a situation like this, so got some good experience on which to count on. I think just keep seeing good golf shots and keep playing one shot at a time. I don't think you can get defensive, you've just got to go out there, swing free and play as good as you can. It's pretty much that simple. Four-shot lead isn't really a big enough lead to go out and try and waste holes. You know that any guy out here is good enough to make a run at you, so you never know what to expect, you've just got to go out and give it 100 percent.

Q. Going back to that trip from last week, are you eligible to win the J.R. Challenge?
JUSTIN ROSE: Well, they handicap me pretty good. They play me off +7. +7 and a little bit hung over, so that's not a great combination. But I did tie for second, so I worked pretty hard.

Q. What's the trophy?
JUSTIN ROSE: It's just like a little mini-Claret Jug. It's good fun.

Q. Any irony in the fact that you tied for second last week and you could win this week?
JUSTIN ROSE: That's what the boys said. It was a good warm-up, get me back in contention.

Q. When you said seeing good golf shots, you're talking about visualizing good shots off the tee and into the green?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, just staying positive, just really playing aggressively to your spots that you choose. I think that's kind of the mindset, not really sort of -- if you're hitting to the middle of the green, the mindset is to hit an aggressive shot to the middle of the green rather than steer one away from the flag. That's sort of the subtle mindset difference.

Q. How much do you visualize before you hit a shot, the ball flight and so forth, and it seems like it's easy for you this week. Can you talk about that?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I don't really visualize, I don't really see the ball throughout its entirety of its flight, but I think this week I've been very clear on my numbers, very clear on my club selection and very clear on my target. And then after that I've been putting pretty good swings on it. I feel like my caddie and I have made some very good decisions out there this week. We've clubbed it well. We've played sensibly. I think we've had a good strategy around the golf course. So that for me is the most important thing tomorrow, just keep making good decisions and keep making good swings after that.

Q. Given how the course played today, how does this round measure up with Thursday and with the other two rounds?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I mean, Thursday was sort of an exceptional round. It's led to this position. But today I was very happy with that round today based upon the position. I was aware of where I was all day through the round -- well, not exactly, but I knew I was out there in front. I kept very calm, very comfortable, kept hitting good shots at the right time, made a few key putts here and there. I don't feel like I could have done a lot more today.

Q. Would you talk about Mark on 14?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah. Obviously I've asked him to mark his ball, so if there was ever going to be a penalty, I was going to feel pretty guilty about that. When he's gone down to replace it, obviously your body is in an unusual act, you're in the bunker but you're in a hazard, but he's obviously in some sense grounded his club somewhat trying to stay balanced, I suppose. But I believe no penalty, and I think that was the right decision. There was certainly no way he was ever testing the surface. That would have been a harsh thing to have happened.

Q. You were in trouble so little today, but can you maybe talk you through No. 7, a little bit of trouble off the tee shot but then almost chipped in for birdie?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, that was one of those things actually off the tee where you're kind of aiming at the middle of the fairway but you're hitting it away from the water. It was one of the few shots I wasn't very clear on today. Second shot, I had a shot. Basically I had the perfect shot, but there was no real room for error. If I pushed it right, I hit the tree trunk; if I pulled it a little bit left, I hit the limb of the tree.
It just came out perfectly. For a second I thought it was going to run up onto the green and be really good, and then hit a great chip. I had to use the fringe, landed the ball in the fringe, just trickled it over the crown of the hill, rolled down, looked like it was going to be a pretty miraculous 3. But yeah, that was a lovely momentum keeper in the round.

Q. When you were talking about strategy going around the golf course, could you talk about a couple of holes where you feel that maybe you just want to make par and you're happy or are there certain holes you feel you can attack with the strategy you've set up for this week?
JUSTIN ROSE: Well, I think there's quite a lot of clover style greens out there where you've got a lot of situations where the pin will be five yards over, five yards behind and five yards from the left. But if you hit 20 feet right of the cup you've got 15 yards to play with rather than just five. So holes like 6 and 7 would be good examples of that. I feel that's the way I'm playing this week, sort of hitting to the middle of the greens quite a lot, and then when I've got wedge in my hand try and do something a little bit different.

Q. What did you hit on 13?
JUSTIN ROSE: 7-iron. Driver, 7-iron in there. That was a nice flag. Coming in from the right side of the fairway, even though the yardage book said it was on the left side of the green, coming in from that angle it was a straight-at-it shot.
MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot, Justin. Good luck tomorrow.

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