Rose’s late unraveling
Justin Rose was still in contention on the back nine but lost three shots across holes 11–13 with a poor approach, a duffed chip and a three‑putt, a sequence analysts flagged as decisive (youtube.com). Podcast breakdowns and round recaps narrate that cluster of mistakes as the moment several challengers fell out of the title fight (bbc.com).
Justin Rose was back in the middle of the 2025 Masters on Sunday, then gave away ground across Augusta National’s 11th, 12th and 13th holes before losing to Rory McIlroy in a playoff. (pgatour.com) Rose still shot a 6-under 66 in the final round and finished 72 holes at 11-under 277, tied with McIlroy before the sudden-death return to the 18th. McIlroy won the playoff with a birdie, leaving Rose runner-up at Augusta for the second time in a playoff after 2017. (pgatour.com 1) (pgatour.com 2) The stretch that keeps coming up in recaps is holes 11 through 13, where Rose made bogey, bogey and par after reaching the back nine in contention. Those three holes sit inside Augusta’s “Amen Corner,” the part of the course that most often flips the leaderboard because one loose shot can turn into two dropped strokes. (espn.com) (nbcsports.com) That is why the unraveling gets singled out even though Rose nearly recovered. He birdied the 15th, parred 16 and 17, then holed a 20-foot birdie putt on 18 to post 11-under and force McIlroy to answer. (pgatour.com) The larger Masters story was McIlroy finally completing the career Grand Slam at the 89th tournament on April 13, 2025. Rose’s mistakes were folded into that finish because they opened space for McIlroy and other contenders to survive their own shaky closing stretches. (masters.com) (nbcsports.com) Rose’s round had looked like a charge before that. He had opened the week with a 65 to lead after Thursday, stayed near the top after a 71 on Friday, slipped with a 75 on Saturday, then surged again Sunday to get back to the number that ultimately set the clubhouse target. (pgatour.com 1) (pgatour.com 2) He was 44 at the time, and the finish added another near miss at a tournament that has followed him for nearly two decades. Rose had also lost the 2017 Masters in a playoff to Sergio Garcia, and the 2025 result became his second straight runner-up finish in a major after The Open in July 2024. (pgatour.com) Rose did not frame Sunday as a collapse after the round. “I hit a lot of quality shots under pressure,” he said, after a day that turned on three messy holes and still ended one putt from a green jacket. (pgatour.com)
