Justin Rose has defied adversity by remaining incredibly competitive at age 45, already winning once on the 2026 PGA Tour and competing again at the Masters later Sunday.
The Briton announced on Instagram this week that he will be taking another shot at the Cadillac Championship and bringing a new club to his return to Doral on the PGA Tour. The clubs will come from a brand new manufacturer, McLaren Golf, with Rose joining as an investor and the brand’s first ambassador.
In fact, it’s the automaker McLaren, which publicly announced its plans to launch a golf brand two months ago, and found a brand launch date that suited the PGA Tour’s stop in the Miami area on the same weekend as Formula 1’s Miami race.
This all seems sudden, but Rose and McLaren have been working together on club testing and production for quite some time.
“From the beginning, this was a passion project,” Rose said in a statement. “I had the opportunity to be involved from the beginning, working with the team, testing the club and helping shape its form. That level of involvement, combined with the standards that McLaren brings to everything it does, made this an easy decision for me. I’m excited to join the club and see the brand flourish.”
This isn’t the first time Rose has made a surprising equipment change, but you’ll be hoping things will be better this time around. After winning the FedEx Cup in 2018, Rose left TaylorMade in 2019 at the peak of his career and moved to Honma. The then No. 2 player in the world started the 2019 season with a win at Torrey Pines, but things deteriorated at his new club from there, and he ended his multi-year contract in 2020 after missing a series of cuts.
Since then, Rose has chosen to remain an equipment free agent, playing a blend of clubs from different manufacturers that best suit his game. Seven years later, in the midst of a career renaissance, Rose is taking another chance with a new club manufacturer looking to expand into tour manufacturing.
The Cadillac Championship will be Rose’s first PGA Tour start since finishing T3 at the Masters. Although he has kept a low profile lately, all eyes will be on how he performs at his new club, McLaren.
