Rose must 'rediscover carefree attitude'

Justin Rose is about to discover what he is made of on the grandest stage golf has to offer.

A scintillating opening 67 in the Masters at Augusta sent the 23-year-old into today with a two-stroke lead over his closest challengers Chris DiMarco and Jay Haas – and, incredibly, a nine-stroke advantage over a clearly-troubled Tiger Woods.

Rose, the youngest professional taking part, has never been in such a position before. But he does, of course, have the never-to-be-forgotten memory of the 1998 Open at Birkdale.

At the age of 17 Rose produced the greatest performance by an amateur in that championship for 45 years, pitching in at the last to finish joint fourth and taking it all in his stride, it seemed.

“The thing I did so well there was that I was blissfully unaware of the level I was actually playing at,” he said yesterday.

“I think that if you can sort of kid yourself into being in that mindset again, just letting your natural abilities take over and not tend to worry too much about ‘this is the Masters’ or whatever, then you have a good chance.”