AUGUSTA, Ga. — Justin Rose kept hitting golf balls to stay loose at the tournament practice facility, all alone save for longtime caddie Mark Fulcher, everything eerily quiet around him while drama was unfolding elsewhere on Sunday at the Masters.
Rose had generated roars of his own down the stretch at Augusta National, the biggest of all coming at the 18th, when he rolled in a 20-footer for a birdie and then looked to the heavens. It finished off a round of 6-under-par 66, pulled him into a tie with Rory McIlroy at 11 under, and would ultimately sent Rose off to prepare for the possibility of a playoff.
He got it when McIlroy missed a putt on the 18th some 40 minutes later, leaving him tied with Rose at 11-under 277 for 72 holes of regulation.
The two headed back to the final tee for a sudden-death showdown. Rose striped a drive down the right side, McIlroy matched him down the middle. Rose knocked his approach to 15 feet, McIlroy stuck to three feet. But when Rose slid his birdie putt past, and McIlroy drained his own, he finally had the one leg of the career Grand Slam that had so long eluded him.
And once again, the 44-year-old Englishman had been denied in a playoff at Augusta National. The 2013 U.S. Open champion and Olympic gold medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games had been part of the most recent one in the Masters, eight years ago, when he lost to Spanish star Sergio Garcia on the first sudden-death hole.