The 154th Open Championship begins at Royal Birkdale on 16 July, and Justin Rose is in the field. For Rose, Birkdale has unusual significance. It is where his professional life started, where his Open story began, and where winning the Claret Jug would add a defining chapter to a distinguished career.

The 1998 Shot and Everything After

Rose was 17 years old and the youngest player in the field when he arrived at the 127th Open in 1998. He shot a second-round 66 that matched Tiger Woods’s record for the lowest individual round by an amateur at The Open. He shared the lead after 48 holes. Then, on the 72nd hole on Sunday, he holed a 50-yard pitch from the rough to finish tied fourth at 2-over par, two strokes behind winner Mark O’Meara.

It was the last shot he ever hit as an amateur. He turned professional the next day.

Rose has said that moment both launched and haunted him.

“That one shot that I hit there, that’s the one shot that I have had to try to live up to,” He told The Open. The immediate aftermath was difficult: 21 consecutive missed cuts to start his professional career. But the trajectory eventually led to a 2013 U.S. Open title, Olympic gold, and 13 weeks as world No. 1.

He has also described that 1998 week as a kind of blueprint. “The freedom I had that week, the confidence I had in my short game, the innocence in which I played the game, I think, is kind of still a model,” he said before the 2025 Open.

Still Contending at 45

The case for Rose at Birkdale rests on recent results as well as sentiment. He has finished second or tied second in five majors across his career, and two of those have come in the past two years. At the 2024 Open at Royal Troon, he started the final round one shot off the lead, carded a closing 67, and finished tied second behind Xander Schauffele. At the 2025 Masters, he lost a playoff to Rory McIlroy.

Those results confirm that Rose still puts himself in positions to win the biggest events. The challenge is finishing, especially in a field expected to include Schauffele, McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, and many of the game’s leading players.

Rose is realistic about where he stands.

‘It’s going to be hard to get a ton better and transform my game to suddenly add new dimensions to it where I can kind of become incredibly dominant over the top young players. But I think in certain situations and in certain environments, I can still kind of bring my best.”

Birkdale itself has changed since 1998, with a back-nine reworking completed before the 2017 Open that removed the old par-3 14th and added a new par-3 15th. Rose is not returning to an identical course. He is returning to the same club with 28 years of professional experience and, at 45, an awareness that opportunities are finite.

“To win it would kind of close the book in a way on my Open Championship story”

A second major at Birkdale would add a powerful late chapter to Rose’s career and bring his Open story back to the place it began. It would also guarantee his place in the World Golf Hall of Fame, which may already be assured due to his victory at the 2016 Olympic Game in Rio de Janeiro, where he beat Henrik Stenson with a 16 under par score.  

I, for one, would love to see Justin Rose conquer his second major championship and create the ultimate storybook ending, not least because his humbleness in defeat in each of his 5 runner-up spots has demonstrated a character to aspire for all of us who play the game. 

Hero image: 2024 R&A