Last week in the Foremost Golf blog we looked at the rapidly increasing excitement around the European Tour's Race to Dubai. With the first two tournaments of October, England's Tyrrell Hatton snatched back-to-back victories to put the heat on at the top of the Race to Dubai standings. Now, taking notes from his fellow countryman, Justin Rose has emulated Hatton's consecutive wins with victories at the WGC-HSBC Champions and Turkish Airlines Open respectively. Both golfers hadn't won a tournament in 2017 prior to the aforementioned titles. Apparently being an English golfer is a lot like waiting for a London bus. That said, nobody's ever paid me a (not so) small fortune to get on a London bus.

Justin Rose, who overturned an eight-stroke deficit the previous week to win in Shanghai, sat nine strokes behind clubhouse leader Nicolas Colsaerts heading into the weekend, before the Belgian hit two-over on Saturday and slipped to -12. Meanwhile, Rose roared to a -7 for the day to equal Colsaerts at twelve-under for the tournament. Ireland's Shane Lowry and Kiradech Aphibarnrat shared the overnight lead heading into the final round at -14. Another Irish golf legend, Padraig Harrington, shared T2 with Rose and Colsaerts. Rose once again came from behind in steady fashion. As viewers marvelled at Dylan Frittelli's three birdie chip-ins on the front nine, including two genuine moments of magic on the fourth & eighth, Rose continued to march up the leaderboard with consistent birdies.

Six birdies and a bogey left Rose and Colsaerts level on the eighteenth at -17. Rose nailed a birdie putt to force Colsaerts into a pressure putt for a playoff. The Belgian narrowly missed and Rose emerged victorious, making himself just the third player ever, joining Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, to follow up a World Golf Championship success with another title (again, not something I’ve seen a London bus do). Now, with just two tournaments left- the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai- Justin Rose sits just behind Race to Dubai leader Tommy Fleetwood. Fleetwood’s T23 leaves him in need of a big result to maintain his top spot. Behind Rose is Sergio Garcia, Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Ross Fisher and Rafa Cabrera-Bello respectively; making it four Englishmen and three Spaniards in the European Tour’s top seven.

Justin Rose – What’s in the Bag?

Driver: TaylorMade M1

3-wood: TaylorMade M2

5-wood: TaylorMade M1

Irons: TaylorMade P790

Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind

Putter: TaylorMade TP Red Ardmore 2

Golf ball: TaylorMade TP5

Written by Joe Carabini

joe.carabini@foremostgolf.com