As he stares down his 46th birthday this summer, Justin Rose is the oldest player in the Official World Golf Rankings top 50 — and that experience isn’t lost on him.

In fact, his past experience is part of the reason he feels so 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 this week’s Cadillac Championship in Miami. On Tuesday, at a pre-tournament press conference, he was asked about the new partnership, with the brand is set to officially announce its new clubs at an event on Wednesday.

“McLaren Golf has been something that’s been on the back burner for a good number of months,” Rose said Tuesday at his pre-tournament press conference, his first comments since the announcement. “Obviously, to launch a brand out of the ground obviously has been going for a lot longer than a year. It’s something I’ve been involved with from the outset, really helping the engineering team, really testing the very first editions of the club. So yeah, I’ve been kind of working with the project for well over a year, probably.”

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

Although Rose won early that season at Torrey Pines — like he did this year — the partnership quickly soured and all of the Honma clubs were out of his bag by early 2020. Both parties exited the deal shortly thereafter.

Since then, Rose has been a gear-free agent and one who tinkers frequently from using lead tape on his driver shaft to using split brand set of irons or gaming seven-year-old fairway woods.

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

Without being directly asked about it, Rose brought up the 2019 situation with Honma.

“From my point of view, no, I’m actually looking at what can be better. I’m looking to mitigate risk,” Rose said. “Yeah, I’ve done this once before as well in 2019, obviously, and I kind of learned a lot from that process. So I feel a bit better place now to kind of go down this path.

“I think yeah, I think there’s some best practices that we’re kind of, we’ve sort of put into development really that I think are giving me what I feel are a fantastic set of golf clubs. I’m looking at some of the performance data that I’m getting on the range and places like that and outperforming what I have.”

The main differences between 2019 and now are that Rose isn’t signing on with an established brand looking to push into a new market. McLaren is starting their golf business from scratch, and Rose has been along from the start. That’s why he’s also not just an ambassador; he’s an investor in the company.

He added that while he enjoyed his years as a free agent, he didn’t think what he was playing currently was the best thing for him, but he was able to form ideas about what exactly he needed.

“I think when you’re not with an equipment manufacturer, there’s a little bit of temptation just to bounce around anyway, there’s so many good options out there,” Rose said. “But at the same time, I’ve learned so much from being brand agnostic for a while that I kind of have my own preference list now. I feel like I’m in an environment where I can take all my preferences to one place where they can execute on that for me.”

For now, Rose confirmed the company’s initial offering will be two sets of irons, a blade and a cavity-back, which Rose was still contemplating the exact makeup of his set this week in Miami. He acknowledged that there will still be some growing pains as he puts the clubs in competition for the first time.

“Obviously, there’s going to be a refinement process,” he said. “You can test all you want, you got to get the clubs in play, and there’s going to be little mini situations out there, different lies, all sorts of things, just getting comfortable. But in the long-term, no, I don’t see there being an issue at all.”

But this will just be the beginning and he looks forward to building out a complete bag with McLaren.

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

Golf instruction is ever-evolving, but the best advice stands the test of time. In GOLF.com’s new series, Timeless Tips, we’re highlighting some of the greatest advice teachers and players have dispensed in the pages of GOLF Magazine. Today we look back to our June 2014 issue for some tips from Justin Rose on playing under pressure.

Justin Rose may be an elder statesman on the PGA Tour, but that doesn’t mean he can’t compete with the young guns. Since he turned 40, five years ago, the Englishman has three wins and six top-10 major finishes — including a runner-up at the Masters. Not too shabby for an “old” guy.

Rose’s secret? A game that was built to age gracefully, headlined by a swing that every golfer should be envious of.

Recreational golfers may never be able to swing quite as smooth as Rosey does, but that doesn’t mean they can’t emulate his game. About 12 years ago, he showed us how.

Check out below for a reproduction of a 2014 GOLF Magazine story where Rose explained four in-depth tips for making more birdies.

Rose’s tips for making birdies

I’ve birdied 3,025 holes in my PGA Tour career (through the 2014 Masters), including a career-high 384 in 2006. And my 15 birdies at the U.S. Open last year paced the field — and helped me bag my first major. The talent level on Tour is so high that you need a ton of birdies just to survive, let alone win majors. Circles on the scorecard are necessary to my day job, but for recreational golfers, birdies are like gold. I get it — most of my friends are mid-handicappers, and I see what birdies do for their games. Birdies erase mistakes, build confidence and, let’s face it — they make the game a lot more fun. 

I know how to birdie holes, so I’ll let you in on a little secret You can’t even attempt to make birdie if you don’t hit greens. And it’s difficult to hit greens if you don’t hit fairways. That’s why my scoring plan favors accuracy over all else. Follow my simple driving, iron- and wedge-swing secrets and you’ll be staring at more birdie putts than ever. And just to make sure you don’t waste a golden opportunity, I offer my best putting tip ever. Get ready to start seeing red — on your card.

1. How to hit more fairways

I was No. 1 in total driving (a combination of distance and accuracy) heading into the U.S. Open at Merion last summer, and I ended the season fourth. I’ve spent a lot of time in the gym in recent years to increase my power, and I even took a page from Jack Nicklaus’s book and started lifting my front heel during my backswing to get more hip turn. The five or 10 yards I’ve added is great, but really, distance is secondary to accuracy when it comes to setting up birdie opportunities.

My best driving tip: Drives fly straight when you swing with good rhythm. Take the club back so slowly that you can feel the segments of your backswing unfolding in succession. I even count them off sometimes “Shoulder turn, right elbow fold, wrist hinge, arm lift,” and so on. Swinging slowly allows your body and the club to reach the top of your backswing at the same time, which makes your transition extra-smooth. I believe that if you’re smooth and solid at the top, you’ll probably be smooth and solid at the bottom — which is where it counts. 

When you start back down, make sure to swing all the way through the ball. A lot of weekend players slow down at or just after impact with a kind of chopping motion; they think this will help square the clubface. It doesn’t. In fact, you’ll probably hit a slice! I picture a second ball a few inches in front of the real one, and try to “hit” both. This technique ensures that I swing beyond the impact point so that the face continues to square. For extra distance, reach top speed at the second ball. This way you’re always accelerating through the hitting zone.

2. How to hit more greens

One thing that’s helped me become a good iron player is learning to feel impact. Before I started working with Sean Foley, I’d strike the ball with the shaft standing almost straight up and down. It worked, but my shots didn’t sizzle. Sean has helped me add more shaft lean at impact. This compresses the ball more (my new feel for impact), and it stabilizes the club through the hitting zone, which helps the ball fly straight.

My best iron tip: Getting the shaft leaning forward at impact, with your hands ahead of the clubhead and the clubface stable, isn’t as simple as just “lean the shaft forward.” It’s really a whole-body event.

The key is to shift the vast majority of your weight to your front foot on your downswing — I’m talking 90 percent of your weight. Think of it this way: If you shift everything forward, then your hands shift forward — and stay ahead of the clubhead. Getting your weight forward also stops you from “hanging back” on your right side, where you’re forced to flip the clubhead with your wrists just to make contact with the ball. Flippers are usually slicers.

3. How to hit better wedges

When you’re swinging your woods and irons, it’s all about creating power from the ground up: You drive with your legs, then your hips, then your arms and finally your hands. That’s the ideal downswing chain of events. When you get to your wedges, however, it’s the opposite; your upper body does more of the heavy lifting, so to speak, while your lower half stays very quiet.

I’ve learned this just recently, and it has made all the difference in the world. Now when I want to hit a soft wedge shot, I turn all my focus to my upper body and make sure I rotate it first and fastest on my downswing. I even set up to encourage more upper-body turn, addressing the ball with my chest open and my hips square. My goal? To re-create this arrangement at impact. Do it right and it’ll feel like your hands are traveling to the left of the target after impact, rather than straight down the line.

My best wedge tip: I feel like the most accurate wedge players are the ones who can control trajectory, so it’s vital to develop more than one stock short-game swing. To hit a low shot (good for back pins), finish your swing with your hands and the clubhead in line with your forearms. This sharply reduces the launch angle. To hit a high shot, line up your hands and forearms in the finish, but release the club up and to the left.

4. How to make more putts

Over the years I’ve tried to be perfect with my putting stroke. That’s not the way to make birdies, because there were times when my stroke was perfect and I couldn’t buy a putt. You’re better off working on improving your green reading than overthinking your stroke.

The way I read greens now is to walk behind the ball in a semicircle. Using my feet, I’ll try to feel the point on the green where I go from walking downhill to walking uphill (or vice versa). Finding this “inflection point” (it’s not hard to do with practice and added awareness) gives you important clues about how the putt will break: If your ball sits left of the inflection point, it breaks right; if it sits to the right, it breaks left. And the farther the ball is from the inflection point, the more it will curve.

My best putting tip: I’ve tried a lot of putting tips over the years, but the one I keep going back to is “keep your eyes still.” As soon as you start peeking, you’re toast. If your eyes move, then so will your body, and this will ruin any chance you might have for centered contact. I challenge myself to watch every inch of my putting stroke — if I keep my eyes still, I won’t miss a moment of action. Even on long strokes I’ll use my peripheral vision to track the putterhead back and through. Listen for the ball to drop, don’t watch it.

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