McLaren Golf Just Got Its First Tour Player: Justin Rose

It wasn't that long ago that McLaren (the car company) surprised the golf world with the announcement that they were entering the golf equipment space. After that, rumors began to swirl around what segment they would enter first - driver, wedges, irons, and if they would eventually sign a tour player.

Well today, some of those questions have been answered with the unveiling of Justin Rose as their first global ambassador and Tour player (the "global ambassador" phrasing is theirs, not mine, just to be clear), and there are some new irons to go with the flashy bag.

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To go along with playing the new gear, which he has helped to develop for over a year behind the scenes with the engineering and design team at McLaren, Justin will also carry a McLaren staff bag.

“From the beginning, this has been a passion project," Justin Rose said. I’ve had the opportunity to be involved from the outset, working with the team, testing the clubs, and helping shape McLaren Golf into 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."

My Take

Now that we have the announcement out of the way, let's talk shop.

In many ways, this is not a massive surprise since Justin made a very telling cameo during a McLaren-focused episode of Drive to Survive in the most recent season, and rumors of Rosie's move have swirled around the industry for months.

Many of the people involved at McLaren Golf have worked with Justin in the past at TaylorMade, where he was a long-time staffer.

What Could Go Wrong?

Now, let me preface this with the fact that I personally have full faith in everyone involved at McLaren Golf and have known many of the people involved for years - but if this whole story has a familiar ring to it, it should.

It was just under a decade ago when Justin Rose made a surprise change to Honma equipment, and to be fair, people seem to forget that he won in one of the first events he played in with the new clubs. But something happened between Torrey Pines and Bay Hill in 2019 because we went full equipment free agent and never looked back.

Considering that this has been such a long time coming, and Justin has been involved since the start when it comes to development, I expect this to go a much different direction than it did at Honma. And lucky for us, we don't have to wait long to watch him play as he'll tee it up this week in Miami at the Cadillac Championship.

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