Justin Rose has defied the odds by remaining incredibly competitive at 45 years old, already winning once on the PGA Tour in 2026 and once again contending late on Sunday at the Masters.
The Englishman will take on another challenge this week at the Cadillac Championship, announcing on Instagram that he’ll put new clubs in play for the PGA Tour’s return to Doral. Those clubs will be from a brand new manufacturer — McLaren Golf — which Rose is joining as an investor and the brand’s first ambassador.
That is, in fact, the car manufacturer McLaren, who publicly announced their plans to launch a golf brand two months ago and found a fitting launch date for their brand with the PGA Tour’s stop in the Miami area on the same weekend as Formula 1’s Miami race.
While this all seems sudden, Rose and McLaren have been working together to test and produce their clubs for quite some time.
“From the beginning, this has been a passion project,” Rose said in a statement. “I’ve had the opportunity to be involved from the outset – working with the team, testing the clubs and helping shape what they’ve become. That level of involvement, combined with the standards McLaren brings to everything they do, made this an easy decision for me. I’m excited to put the clubs in play and watch the brand flourish.”
This is not the first time Rose has made a surprising equipment change, but he’ll be hoping this time things go better. Rose left TaylorMade for Honma in 2019 at the peak of his powers after winning the 2018 FedEx Cup. While the then-World No. 2 won at Torrey Pines early that 2019 season, things went south with his new clubs from there and he ended his multi-year deal in 2020 after a string of missed cuts.
Since then, Rose has opted to remain an equipment free agent, playing a blend of clubs from various manufacturers best suited for his game. Seven years later, Rose will once again take a chance on a new club manufacturer trying to make a foray into Tour manufacturing while he’s in the midst of a career resurgence.
The Cadillac Championship will be Rose’s first start on the PGA Tour since his T3 finish at the Masters, and while he’s typically flown a bit under the radar of late, there will be plenty of eyes on how he performs with McLaren’s new clubs in the bag.