Justin Rose: I’m here to win a medal - finishing fourth means diddly squat

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Justin Rose appears to be the antithesis of much of the world’s golfers.

From the outset the sport was awarded entry to the Games for Rio 2016, he has made it his quest to get in a position to qualify for Team GB while his Zika-fearing peers have opted to stay away.

The only bug that Rose has been bitten by is an Olympic one, enraptured watching it as a child with his mother and late father growing up, his earliest Games memory being of Linford Christie winning 100 metres gold in Barcelona in 1992.

“I remember I used to call him Olympic crispy,” he says laughing as he recalls his 12-year-old self. “It was the athletics that I think of at the Olympics. I remember watching the Linford Christie era clearly but there have been plenty of other great British memories and iconic moments like Usain Bolt.”

Rose begins his Olympic experience on Thursday, teeing off alongside Rickie Fowler and Jhonattan Vegas in the first round. Four years ago he turned down tickets to London 2012 and that decision still rankles.

“At the time, I thought it was going to be too crazy and hectic so I said ‘no’ and that’s one big regret for me,” he says. “I tell myself that it’s a good thing in a way as my first Olympic experience will be as a competitor anyway which wouldn’t have been the case in London.”

Rose has been lapping up the Olympic experience, spending more than a week in Rio before the first of his four rounds of golf, taking selfies with a litany of Team GB members including Team GB Andy Murray, whose brain he picked returning home from the Opening Ceremony.

“I sat next to him for the bus ride back from that,” says Rose. “It was the first time I’d properly met him and got to talk to him at any great length. He’s a lovely guy and there’s so much you can learn from someone like that despite being in a different sport. I like to think conversations like that help going into my event.”

While Murray is competing in the men’s tennis singles as defending champion, Rose is among the favourites to win golfing gold with the top four in the world: Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy opting to stay away.

Rose refuses to criticise his peers for giving Rio a miss.

“In my mind, it’s very much a case of each to their own,” he says. “You have to respect their view point as clearly the build-up to the Games was not without its issues. So I’m very sympathetic to their view points.

“But I’ve been pretty steadfast from the very outset that I’ve been excited about this opportunity from day one and I’ve been keeping an eye on my world ranking so I was in a position to be selected for Team GB.”

The high-profile absentees will help his medal cause, and Rose makes no secret of his desire to go for gold.

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“The Olympics is all about camaraderie and sportsmanship but it’s about winning a medal and this is a tournament where finishing fourth means diddly squat,” he says. “So obviously I’d like to come away with a medal and the goal is to go for the gold. I’ve got as good a chance as anybody, my game’s taking shape and I’m in good form.

“As golfers, we often get on a good, two, three or four-week roll where everything just clicks and I feel like my time is coming. I just need to play four great rounds of golf.”

A strong final two rounds at the US PGA Championship, which saw him climb up to 22nd come the finish, were a confidence-boosting build-up to Rio but he argues that Open champion Henrik Stenson, who was also seventh at the PGA, is the pre-event favourite.

Rose, who tweeted a picture of him with Stenson at the Opening Ceremony, adds: “He’s one of the top players in the world and he’ll be incredibly difficult to beat. And then there’s Sergio Garcia who plays with so much pride when representing his country, plus Danny Willett along with me in GB colours.”

The two Brits have been playing together in practice in the lead-up to teeing off in competition on a course that Rose, himself a Major winner from the US Open in 2013, believes plays to his strengths.

“There’s pretty windy conditions there, much like the Open and it’s a tough course but that tends to suit my game,” he argues.

As for the broader issue of golf, which has come in for flak in the build-up because of the big-name absentees and comments from McIlroy in which he said he would not be watching the action.

But Rose, in contrast a golfing diplomat, says: “I’d love golf to be here to stay in the Olympics. No doubt there’s been some negativity but that was the case with tennis when it was brought in and you can see how seriously the top players take Olympic tennis now.

“It’s very special. You can’t really compare it to, say, the Open which has been the benchmark for golf for many years. But this is the first time golf has been at the Games for a long time and it’s an incredible opportunity. It just doesn’t compare. For me, it’s been everything I’ve wanted it to be so far.”

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