The Players Championship

It's not a major, but it's close enough. Golf, like tennis has four major championships, namely The Masters, USPGA, US Open and the Open Championship. I'm lucky enough to have been to the Open Championship on a Sunday twice, last year and 2019 and it was an amazing experience. The Player's Championship at Sawgrass is often called the fifth major and although it's not an official major, it's the next best thing and one that every golfer wants to win.

While watching the Player's Championship this evening, I got the idea for this post. I watched Justin Rose and at 45 years of age, he is still mixing it up with players half his age and he is still competing and still capable of winning on the PGA tour as we saw recently. How is Rose still able to compete at the highest level? What does he do differently?

How Justin can still mix it with the young players

So it turns out, he's a grass whisperer, as you can clearly see from the following photo...

Ok. So he's not a grass whisperer! But he is getting the edge on people by really minding himself and going above and beyond after rounds to recover and refocus for the following day's golf. So let's get into it, what exactly is Justin getting up to?

After finishing a round, he usually begins his post-round routine by signing his scorecard and taking a few minutes to reflect on the round. While the details are still fresh in his mind, he thinks about the key moments that shaped his score, including important shots, difficult holes, and any mistakes he made. This early reflection allows him to quickly identify what went well and what he might want to improve before the next round. There is more to it than that however.

His real secret is the physical recovery and it is a key part of his post-round routine. If you want to still be challenging with the young guns on the PGA Tour it takes some graft and a different approach. After walking the course for five to seven hours including warm up and making hundreds of swings, the body can get tight and a tight and tired body is not going be able to perform four days in a row playing against the best players in the world, the majority much younger than Justin. So Justin has invested in a recovery RV. A what now?

A recovery RV. So he's taken a standard RV and retrofitted it with a cold plunge bath, a hot plunge bath, a red light machine, a steam shower, amongst other things, and it looks to be paying dividends. He said himself:

"We've got a hot plunge, cold plunge, infrared sauna, steam shower - steam shower's my favourite especially during allergy season,"

"There's a red light bed and we've got a spin bike with fresh oxygen."

Well whatever he's doing is certainly working. He was very close to spoiling Rory's party last year at Augusta losing narrowly in a playoff and he is still playing top golf. Indeed, he was a dominant wire to wire winner of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in late January this year, becoming the oldest winner of the event and setting a new tournament scoring record.

So even as a 45 year old, Rose is not only competing on the PGA Tour but able to dominate, and that comes down to not only his golfing ability but how meticulous he is in both his preparation and, crucially, his recovery and that's what recovery RV is for. That's his secret sauce.

Maybe he's one to watch again for this year's Masters? Although I'd be looking for more value than 25/1 to be honest.

Peace Out