Is Justin Rose the Best English Golfer Since Faldo?

JR's achievments

Majors 1
PGAT wins 7
WGCs 1
Euro OOM 1
European tour wins 7
Major top 10's 9


The only other contender is Luke Donald and Rose pips him due to winning a major.

(Lee Westwood just hasn't proved himself on the premier tour, and racked up many wins in pi55 poor fields)


Edit: worth noting point 2 from kwini's article.

kwini wrote:2).Rose also nudges into 3rd place in terms of most post-war wins by Europeans in the United States. Current list:
8 wins: Garcia, McIlroy
7: Rose
6: Ballesteros, Faldo, Olazabal
5: Donald, Lyle, Parnevik, Pettersson

Yes!

I really thought the Donald and Westwood fans would put up a better fight. But it seems this was rather easily settled.

He would be if he wasn't a saffer..

Does anyone have any theories as to why England has under-achieved to such an extent at the highest level? 1 Major since Faldo is a ridiculously low return given the quality of golfers that have been produced.

By comparison, players from the island of Ireland have won 9 majors since 2007.

inco

I posted something about Englands lack of talent on another thread and predict the situation will get much worse. They have no potential top players for at least the generation behind Rose. When Donald, Westwood, Poulter and Casey retire it isn't hard to imagine a top 50 with Rose as the only Englishman.

Best since Faldo? Yep. Definitely.

Think Westwood might have been there, or thereabouts, a few years ago but it didn't happen in the Majors then although he was a bit unlucky that year FIGJAM won the Masters after hitting an outrageous (6?) iron from the pine straw on 13 to make eagle.

Poulter was never a serious challenger. Donald had a small window of excellence but never won the Major and seems lost now. Casey seems to have had the raw abilities but never really maximised returns from them.

Pretty much standard operating procedure for the English to under perform as time progresses. We are very good at stuff initially (in just about every field of endeavour) but then seem lose focus, interest, drive? And don't forget as the world gets smaller so our advantage will lessen. I think that's why we are quick to jump on stuff like rowing, cycling and sailing in the olympics - quick before everyone else catches and overtakes!!!

The advocate in my devil says..."maybe". Depends on how you define best. If it's "Won a major" then yes of course and your question was redundant (shock-horror).

If you define best as "Been world number 1" then no, and your question was redundant.

If you define best as "Performed at a high level factored over a long career around the world", then probably no (compared to LW anyway) - it would be a tight call.

If you define best as some arbitrary mix of the two, or some subjective analysis of the quality of the fields, performances and wins then as you reference, the "fans" will pick their favourites.

Timing also pays a part - JR is at a sort of peak whereas LW and LD are on the wane, so the unthinking gut reaction tends to favour JR.

navyblueshorts wrote:
Think Westwood might have been there, or thereabouts, a few years ago but it didn't happen in the Majors then although he was a bit unlucky that year FIGJAM won the Masters after hitting an outrageous (6?) iron from the pine straw on 13 to make eagle.

Except FIGJAM didn't make eagle on 13, he missed the putt and had to settle for birdie. Westwood wasn't unlucky that year: he shot 71 in the final round and stood still while everyone else on the leaderboard was racking up the birdies and shooting in the 60s. Lee had 3 rounds in the 60s that year. What he needed to do on the final day was go out and win the thing by shooting another round in the 60s. Sadly he couldn't do it.

I agree with Bob.

raycastleunited wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:
Think Westwood might have been there, or thereabouts, a few years ago but it didn't happen in the Majors then although he was a bit unlucky that year FIGJAM won the Masters after hitting an outrageous (6?) iron from the pine straw on 13 to make eagle.

Except FIGJAM didn't make eagle on 13, he missed the putt and had to settle for birdie. Westwood wasn't unlucky that year: he shot 71 in the final round and stood still while everyone else on the leaderboard was racking up the birdies and shooting in the 60s. Lee had 3 rounds in the 60s that year. What he needed to do on the final day was go out and win the thing by shooting another round in the 60s. Sadly he couldn't do it.

Worth noting that no one in the history of the Masters has shot 4 rounds at the 60's there. Probably not a surprise that Westwood didn't.

I define best as having performed more successfully over the strongest fields.

As the only major winner, and the player with the most "top tier" wins, then the answer is YES.

I always prefer the players who can miss the cut one week then win the next, over the guys who consistenly perform week in week out and get high rankings without winning or even regularly contending.

Imagine if you could create a player with Westwood's long game and Donald's short game. Now that would be a player worthy of the tag "best"!

McLaren wrote:I define best as having performed more successfully over the strongest fields.

That just moves the problem to what you mean by "more successfully". The strongest fields tend to be the majors, but by more successfully do you mean have beaten the strongest field available at least once, or consistently preformed well in the strongest fields over a long period of time but not necessarily with a win?

My own personal opinion is that the answer to your rather open to interpretation question is...no, but he's going to be.

raycastleunited wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:
Think Westwood might have been there, or thereabouts, a few years ago but it didn't happen in the Majors then although he was a bit unlucky that year FIGJAM won the Masters after hitting an outrageous (6?) iron from the pine straw on 13 to make eagle.

Except FIGJAM didn't make eagle on 13, he missed the putt and had to settle for birdie. Westwood wasn't unlucky that year: he shot 71 in the final round and stood still while everyone else on the leaderboard was racking up the birdies and shooting in the 60s. Lee had 3 rounds in the 60s that year. What he needed to do on the final day was go out and win the thing by shooting another round in the 60s. Sadly he couldn't do it.

Sorry ray. While you're right re. FIGJAM's birdie on 13 (my mistake, it was still an outrageous shot though), Westwood did what almost every other front runner has done since the year dot. In fact, he at least went under par. No-one has shot 4 rounds, the same year, in the 60s at the Masters. Westwood was unlucky in that he came across FIGJAM at his best.  Most other years, I suspect 275 would have had him fitted out for a jacket.
Of those at T10, or better (11 players), less than half (5) shot in the 60s on the last day. I assume you don't think much of Westwood.

I really really wanted Lee to win that year. There was just an inevitability that he would fall at the last hurdle. I think it's mentality: I always felt he was the kind of player who, if he got one major, would go on to win a few more. For a while he was the best player in the world (the OWGR backs this up), but it was just a streak. He has never, in my opinion, been a genuinely great golfer, although he was close to getting there.

bob

Just think about how many times Lee and Donald have won an event with more than 40 OWGR points on offer?

By my reckoning, the list of the English guys with wins worth 40 points or more looks like this:

Casey & Poulter: 5 each.
Donald: 6
Rose: 9
Westwood: 12

Rose's trump cards are the US Open, WGC win & FedEx Play-Off win, none of which Westwood has achieved. But he's also played 25% more PGA Tour events than Westwood whose Major record is substantially better than Rose's - except he's missed out on the W!

Kwini

That is a big surprise with regards to Westwood. I had the (mistaken) perception that he rarely won at that level and had racked up most of his wins in poor fields.

Where did you find that info, and do you know what the value of Westwoods other 30 pro wins were?

Freely available on the owgr website - remember that Westwood's wins go back a very long way.
Although he's indulged in more than his fair share of pot-hunting, some of his decent wins also scored in the 32 - 38 range.

A new poster on here although I've followed the forum for a long time.

Surely the chances that Westwood really threw away were the 2009 and 2013 Open championships. I didn't see much of the 09 championship but I was present at the weekend in 13. He really capitulated after having a reasonably healthy lead going into the final day.

He was unlucky at the masters but his failure at the open's reflect his inability to get it done in the bigger events.

The one that sticks in my mind is the 08 US Open. probably says a lot that there's so many to choose from.

I was there in 09 and felt like I was the only person who wanted him to win it rather than Watson. He made an unfortunate bogey on 15(?), going through the back of the par 3, then birdied 17, just missing his eagle put and then going down 18 he hit an iron off the tee which still reached the fairway bunker. He hit a miraculous 8 iron out to about 40 feet and, because Watson was a shot ahead, charged the birdie putt. He missed the one back, Watson bogeyed 18 out of nowhere and Cink came up on the rails and won the playoff. Westwood again broke par in the final round, and made an understandable play on the last which with hindsight he perhaps needn't have done. The way Watson was playing, though, I don't think many people would have seen that 3 putt coming.

NedB-H wrote:The one that sticks in my mind is the 08 US Open. probably says a lot that there's so many to choose from.

Yes it's almost forgotten that Lee had an extremely good chance to win that, the heroics of Tiger have probably overshadowed it.

SmithersJones wrote:I was there in 09 and felt like I was the only person who wanted him to win it rather than Watson. He made an unfortunate bogey on 15(?), going through the back of the par 3, then birdied 17, just missing his eagle put and then going down 18 he hit an iron off the tee which still reached the fairway bunker. He hit a miraculous 8 iron out to about 40 feet and, because Watson was a shot ahead, charged the birdie putt. He missed the one back, Watson bogeyed 18 out of nowhere and Cink came up on the rails and won the playoff. Westwood again broke par in the final round, and made an understandable play on the last which with hindsight he perhaps needn't have done. The way Watson was playing, though, I don't think many people would have seen that 3 putt coming.

I could be totally wrong but I thought he had hit something with a little more firepower to it than an iron off the last? A hybrid maybe? Still you could look at it two ways, some would say he was unlucky to find the bunker but I would say as a professional it was a poor misjudgement on his behalf. Some perhaps would even say it's a bad shot as finding the bunker off the tee with an iron is criminal even for us hackers.

Yes I remember Turnburry clearly. Lee made some stupid bogies (think he three putted 15?) but I also agree noone thought Watson would throw it away.

Certainly Stewart Cink didn't or he'd've missed his putt on #18. One of the flukier Major winners.
Still the only tournament he ever won that wasn't played the week following a Major - got his timing wrong somehow.

pedro wrote:Yes I remember Turnburry clearly. Lee made some stupid bogies (think he three putted 15?) but I also agree noone thought Watson would throw it away.

Not that clearly then Pedro, I was there too and was behind the 15th green, thought his tee shot had pitched perfectly where it had to but links golf being links golf it clearly landed on a subtle little downslope or hard spot and kicked forward then rolled right through the green into an awful position in the back bunker, he actually did well to make a 4 after coming out the bunker to about 20 feet.

The teeshot on 18 was also desperately unlucky, he deliberately took a club to take that bunker out of play but again caught a subtle downslope on landing and it just ran and ran (Watsons 2nd on 18 suffered similarly - pitched where he felt it had to but it just rolled on and on. Much as I love the Open, in tight ones, better players playing the percentage game can get unfortunate bounces. The only error Westwood really made coming down the stretch was racing the birdie putt on 18 but again in the circumstances I can understand why he did it. He's still not Darren Clarkes winning age so never say never but I do think Turnberry was his golden chance missed.

...oh and in answer to the original post, yes I do think JR will prove to be the best English golfer since Faldo, he more or less is now but of course he has a good few years at the top still to go, whereas LW is definitely in the Autumn of his career. Wouldn't rule out a Donald resurgence but if it's going to happen it needs to start soon.

It's impossible to say right now where the likes of Sullivan and Fleetwood will be or will have achieved in the next 15/20 years.

Potato tomato. Did he 3-putt 16 then? I'm pretty sure he 3-putted one of the last holes where you had to clear a hazard in front of the green.

I am just glad we have been able to see such great golfers - don't really have a dog in the fight of best. However I gather Lee Westwood has won golf tournaments in more countries than any other golfer, ever. I think that's impressive.

Curse those subtle downslopes! Ruined LW's career...

incontinentia wrote:Curse those subtle downslopes! Ruined LW's career...  

Who do you think you are? Clarkson?