Friday 29 March 2019 10:05, UK
Justin Rose paid tribute to his regular caddie while sympathising with Eddie Pepperell after denying his fellow Englishman a notable win on day two of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
Pepperell appeared to be on course for victory when a birdie at the 14th took him three-up with just four holes remaining, but Rose hit back to birdie three of the final four holes, including a nerveless 10-foot putt on the last green which ensured a share of the spoils in Group 2.
Rose now needs to beat Gary Woodland in his final round-robin match on Friday to advance to the knockout stages, while Pepperell and Emiliano Grillo will be playing for pride.
"Obviously I'm delighted to get a halve," said Rose. "I had a great match with Eddie. He's such a class individual, as well as player. To the point where you almost feel sorry for him by doing that to him over the last few holes.
"I felt I needed to birdie the last four holes, but we didn't birdie the par 5, otherwise I would've won the match. But my goal was to birdie out. And obviously you set new intention. You kind of forget everything that's happened previously in the match and that's the way you've got to do it.
"Eddie was obviously very, very hard for me. The whole day he was just solid, and his short game is so good. As you saw on 17 he's never out of the hole. Every time he missed a green he upped and downed it. So I had to win holes with birdies."
Rose then revealed that he had been lifted by a prompt from his long-time caddie Mark "Fooch" Fulcher, who was watching from outside the ropes as he continues to recover from minor heart surgery.
"I have to give a little credit to Foochie," Rose added. "He's been walking on the sidelines here and he kind of gave me a bit of a 'come on Rosy' with four holes to play and lifted my spirits a bit and obviously fought hard for it.
"I could tell he hadn't given up on me. That picked me up a little bit and made me dig a little deeper possibly."
There were also halved matches on day two for four further English challengers, with Paul Casey, Lee Westwood, Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton all keeping their knockout hopes alive.
Westwood was involved in arguably the craziest match of the day as he went four up on Rafa Cabrera Bello with seven holes to play, lost five of the next six holes to trail coming up the last, where he made birdie to thwart the Spaniard.
"It was nice to make that putt for the halve," a relieved Westwood said. "My putting was poor, really, towards the end. I was four-up, gave him 12, gave him 13, gave him 14, three-putted 15. He made a nice pitch and birdie on 16. But I missed from five feet. And I three-putted 17.
"So, I don't know if you call it justice on the last. It's more luck than judgement on the greens for me. But I've hardly been playing coming here. I don't practice when I'm at home, so I can't really expect anything different."
