Justin Rose's Road To World Number One

In this piece we take a look at the Englishman's road to becoming world number one.

Justin Rose's Road To World Number One

He may have lost the 2018 BMW Championship play-off, but Justin Rose has moved to world number one in the world thanks to years of incredible consistency.

His second place at the BMW Championship was his second runners-up finish in a row after doing the same at the Dell-Technologies Championship and it sees him jump from fourth to first in the rankings ahed of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas.

Below we take a look at his long and illustrious road to becoming world number one.

Justin Rose's Road To World Number One

A 20-year process, Rose burst onto the golfing scene at the 1998 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale where he famously holed his approach shot on the 18th hole to secure a fourth place.

He then turned pro but his career took a clear downturn from that point after which he missed his first 21 professional cuts.

But he persevered and in 2002 had four professional wins including the Dunhill Links Championship, the Nashua Nedtel Masters, The Crowns Tournament and finally the Victor Chandler British Masters. By the end of the year he had gone from 165th to 39th in the world and he would stay in the top 100 players from that point onwards.

Then, in 2007, he ended the year with two second places, a tied ninth and a win at the Volvo Masters to get to 7th in the world.

His 2008 and 2009 seasons were winless and he dropped to 70th in the world but from 2010 onwards he has had at least one professional win each year. In fact in 2010, 2014, and 2015 he had two wins and then in 2017 he had three.

In total he has won nine times on the PGA Tour in some big tournaments including the Memorial Tournament, WGC-Cadillac Championship, the BMW Championship, WGC-HSBC Champions and finally his finest moment came at the 2013 US Open at Merion where he beat out Jason Day and Phil Mickelson to collect his first and only Major.

On the European Tour, Rose has won 11 times and has also collected an Olympic Gold medal representing Great Britain at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Rose has become a truly formidable Ryder Cup player too. He will be playing in his fifth event in 2018 and has compiled a record of 11 wins, six losses and two halves. His 1up win over Phil Mickelson in particular, which included two incredible putts on the 17th and 18th, allowed Europe to pull off a stunning come-back in 2012 at Medinah to win by 14.5 points to 13.5.

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Now he has got to the top of the game, he truly has achieved everything there is to achieve.

"To get to world No 1 is unbelievable, and I can say now in my career I've been the best player in the world," said Rose after losing the playoff. "I've been to the top of the game, and that's definitely some consolation.

"I just wish I could have enjoyed the moment maybe, and this just slightly dampens it. But tomorrow or the next day, or the week after, I'll look back at this and think it was amazing, an amazing moment in my career."

Rose is the fourth Englishman to become world number one after Sir Nick Faldo, Lee Westwood and Luke Donald.

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