The most satisfying Masters winner is the one nobody's talking about

Justin Rose has the chance to close out a career journey in the making. Getty Images AUGUSTA, Ga. — The wait was agonizing for Justin Rose.

As he stood over his chip shot from the back side of the 4th green on Masters Saturday, you could sense Rose’s discomfort. He was six under for the tournament, six shots back of Rory McIlroy, and the time to mount a moving day charge was already growing thin. He’d started his day with two pars and a birdie, not bad scores, but arguably losing one shot to the field on the birdie-able second hole.

Now, on the 4th, he’d flushed an iron too good, and was staring at a short-sided chip down a lightning-fast slope with everything to lose. But then, finally, it was his turn to play, so he stepped to his shot, took a deep breath, and began his charge. It didn’t look like much at first, a little squibbed bunt that shot low and fast on the hardpan and slowed on the big hump at the back of the 4th green, but then it was tracking … and then Rose was tracking it, too, walking several steps out to his left as he followed it down towards the hole.

And then Rose could not help himself — just as his ball scared the hole, he scared himself, jolting forward as his ball came to rest in tap-in range. Strange as it seemed, it was a quintessential moment for the golfer nobody’s talking about at the event he wants more than anything. Rose has spent a lifetime as one of the sport’s most theatrical players , leaning headlong into his instincts for the dramatic even in the dullest moments of his professional life.