Will Rose's McLaren club gamble pay off?

Justin Rose was always likely to attract plenty of attention at this week's Cadillac Championship.

Justin Rose is fifth in the PGA Tour rankings

But there will be even more eyes on the 45-year-old Englishman as he prepares to use his new McLaren Golf clubs for the first time when the PGA Tour returns to Doral's Blue Monster Course in Miami.

The 2013 US Open champion has become McLaren's first tour professional as the Formula 1 team enter the golf market.

With his old equipment, Rose has been playing well this year. He won at Torrey Pines in February and prepared assiduously for the Masters in an attempt to go one better than his 2025 play-off defeat by Rory McIlroy.

For 64 holes at Augusta he was brilliant, building a two-stroke advantage before faltering at Amen Corner. He finished in a share of third place as McIlroy retained the Green Jacket.

There was nothing to suggest Rose would want to switch from the hotchpotch make-up of his golf bag. Free from any manufacturer deal, he could play the clubs he wanted, and the ones he chose clearly worked well.

But Rose had been quietly fostering a relationship with the McLaren team that was much deeper than merely befriending golf-mad driver Lando Norris and CEO Zak Brown.

Brown was looking to diversify and join the golf manufacturer market - and Rose was his vehicle. This week the Miami Grand Prix is in town, not far from Doral, and it seems the ideal moment to announce this unlikely business and sporting relationship.

"It's something I've been involved with from the outset - helping the engineering team, really testing the very first editions of the club," said Rose.

"I've been kind of working with the project for well over a year probably. It's been exciting to this week finally launch it."

Rose fans are entitled to be fearful. Many a golf career has hit buffers with a lucrative shift to a new manufacturer, Rose's included.

He was the Olympic champion and a recent world number one when he signed with Japanese firm Honma. He posted a victory soon after the deal in 2019 but did not win again on the PGA Tour for four years.

After extricating himself from the deal, Rose went it alone until signing with McLaren.

"I'm looking to mitigate risk," he said.

"I've done this once before in 2019 and I learned a lot from that process. So I feel a bit better placed now to go down this path."

All professional golfers who move manufacturers speak highly of their new equipment. Rose is no different.

"I'm looking at some of the performance data that I'm getting on the range and [it is] out-performing what I have. That's the exciting part for me," he said.

Rose will play with McLaren irons and is likely to use the more forgiving game-improver versions at the long end of the bag and blades for the rest.

This is not as risky as changing his entire set-up. Driver, putter and ball are usually the most crucial elements, so the move is not as drastic as it might appear.

Nevertheless, he is teaming up with a company that is totally new to the golf industry and, while range data might be encouraging, the acid test can only come on the course.

Rose is making this change in the heart of the golf season when majors come thick and fast. The only tournaments where he can significantly alter and improve his already stellar career are done and dusted three months from now.

That is where the risk lies. If there are any setbacks, they could lead to a wasted season in the blink of an eye. And at the age of 45.

"The clubs are feeling great," Rose said. "A lot of my own preferences have gone into the irons that I'm playing."

But new clubs can lead to unexpected outcomes and, under the pressure of competition, that can become discomfiting.

Rose says he is aware of the potential pitfalls.

"There's going to be a refinement process," he said.

"You can test all you want. You've got to get the clubs in play, and there's going to be little mini situations out there - different lies, all sorts of things.

"But in the long term I don't see there being an issue at all."