Justin Rose explains his McLaren Golf move: ‘I learned a lot’

As he approaches his 46th birthday this summer, Justin Rose is the oldest player in the Official World Golf Top 50 – and that experience is not lost on him.

In fact, his past experience is part of the reason why he felt comfortable becoming an investor in McLaren Golf, the new venture of the F1 and Supercar juggernaut.

Rose was announced as the company’s first global ambassador on Monday at the Cadillac Championship in Miami this week. On Tuesday, in a pre-tournament press conference, he was asked about the new partnership, and the brand will officially announce its new clubs at Wednesday’s event.

“McLaren Golf has been something that has been burning for months,” Rose said Tuesday at a pre-tournament press conference, his first comments since the announcement. “Obviously, launching the product off the field has obviously taken more than a year. It’s something I’ve been involved with since the beginning, helping the engineering team, testing the initial plans for the club. So, I’ve been working on this project for more than a year, maybe.”

Rose himself revealed his previous experience with making mechanical changes. After spending the first 20 years of his career with TaylorMade Golf, he shocked the golf world when, at the start of the 2019 season and as the reigning World No. 1, he left the company to sign with Honma.

Although Rose won earlier that season at Torrey Pines – as he did this year – the partnership soured and all of Honma’s clubs were out of his bag by the start of 2020. Both parties pulled out of the deal soon after.

Since then, Rose has been a gearless agent and has constantly experimented with using lead tape on the shaft of his driver to using split type irons or playing seven-year-old fairway woods.

On Tuesday, Rose was asked if that freedom was worth giving up because of how well he has played, winning twice on the PGA Tour since last August and finishing in the top-3 at the last two Masters.

Without being directly asked about it, Rose revealed the status of 2019 with Honma.

“From my point of view, no, I’m actually looking at what could be better. I’m looking to reduce the risk,” Rose said. “Yes, I have done this before and in 2019, obviously, and I learned a lot in that process.

“I think yes, I think there are some good practices that we’ve put into development that I think give me what I feel is a good set of golf clubs. I look at some of the performance data that I’m getting on the range and stuff like that and it goes beyond what I have.”

The main difference between 2019 and now is that Rose is not signing with an established brand that wants to enter a new market. McLaren is starting his golf business from scratch, and Rose has been on the go since the beginning. That is why he is not just an ambassador; he is the accountant of the company.

He went on to say that although he enjoyed his years playing for free, he did not think that what he was playing at the moment was the best for him, but he was able to form ideas about what he really needed.

“I think if you’re not with an equipment manufacturer, there’s a little temptation to jump anyway, there’s a lot of good options out there,” Rose said. “But at the same time, I’ve learned so much from being brand agnostic for so long that I have my own list of favorites now. I feel like I’m in a place where I can take all of my favorites into one place where they can work for me.”

In the meantime, Rose confirmed that the company’s first offering will be two sets of instruments, a blade and a cavity-back, which Rose was still thinking about the composition of his set this week in Miami. He admitted that the pain will increase as he puts on clubs for the first time.

“Obviously there will be a process of filtering,” he said. “You can test all you want, you have to make the clubs play, and there will be little situations out there, different lies, all kinds of things, be free. But in the long run, no, I don’t see that there is a problem.”

But this will be the beginning and he is looking forward to building a complete portfolio with McLaren.

“I got a lot of ideas from every part of the game,” he added. “This is a great place for me to be able to put my ideas down and let the smart engineers figure it out. But yeah, it’s a fun process to think about it all.”