Victory makes Rose top European in world rankings

Justin Rose's dramatic victory in the Volvo Masters at Valderrama yesterday - only his 12th European appearance of the season - has given him a glorious treble.

The 27-year-old would have been satisfied enough with the biggest win of his career, ending as it did a 12-month drought and coming as it did after he went from four shots ahead with eight holes to play to one behind on the 17th tee.

But beating fellow Englishman Simon Dyson and Dane Soren Kjeldsen with a 14-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole also gave Rose the European Order of Merit title and took him into the world's top 10 for the first time - all the way to seventh, in fact, to make him Europe's top golfer for the first time too.

It was the money list crown that attracted most of the attention, naturally.

A week ago he was in third place behind leader Ernie Els. But the South African's decision to honour a commitment to play in Singapore instead opened the door and Rose took it.

Not without a real scare, though, and one thing he still has to learn from world number one Woods is how to win without a wobble.

After a double-bogey seven on the 11th Rose bogeyed the 13th and 14th and suddenly everything was slipping away from him - not just the tournament, but also the third place finish he needed for the money list title.

He birdied the 536-yard 17th to be tied for the lead again and after he, Kjeldsen and Dyson had all in turn bogeyed the last Rose was the one to grasp the chance when it came in sudden death.

"I am emotional right now," he said after receiving the first prize of £467,644 (€671,860), which took him through the £2m (€2.87m) mark from those 12 starts.

"It was a hard day. I looked like losing and dug deep. I'm sure there's an easy way to do this stuff, but it was terrible.

"It's awesome to do it. Knowing that I had the Order of Merit was a nice consolation going into the play-off (Padraig Harrington's fourth place was not quite enough for him), but I wanted to do it by winning the tournament.

"It's been a long road to get here. You need to win tournaments to be regarded as a great player and it would have been very disappointing if I hadn't won this."

The reference to a "long road" is putting it mildly.

Rose was still an amateur and only 17 when he came a magical fourth in the 1998 Open, but he then began his professional career with an unbelievable 21 successive missed cuts and had to wait 11 months to earn his first penny on the course.

Five years ago he burst to prominence with four wins, but then lost his father Ken to leukaemia and not surprisingly was badly affected.

Now he is Europe's leading man and will enter next year not only hoping it will bring him a first major, but pretty sure it will contain his Ryder Cup debut.

He leads the race and already, with the best part of 10 months still to go, has close to the number of points with which close friend Ian Poulter qualified for the 2004 team.

That can wait, though. The family celebrations were all about what he had just done rather than what he will do in the future.

"This moment, I've been really hoping it would come all week long," he added. "I've been in the hunt, in the mix all week long and this couldn't come quick enough.

"It's a wonderful feeling, such a relief and this is just an amazing icing on the cake for an incredible year. It's a huge honour to be the Order of Merit champion, the European number one."