:: January 08

5 January, Going Carbon Neutral

One of my sponsors Tradition Group has made a commitment via their subsidiary company TFS Energy, to offset all carbon emissions that my team and I will generate through the course of our 2008 travels. They will do this by sourcing and purchasing suitable carbon credits, which are generated by projects developed to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These projects also contribute to the sustainable development of the host country by creating jobs, improving workers’ health and safety standards, developing reliable energy sources and encouraging the use of renewable energy. I believe I am one of the first European Tour golfers to officially off-set his carbon emissions generated by air travel and ground transportation and it feels great to be doing something positive for the environment. I recently went to their offices in London to formally sign up and you can see a picture of this in the Gallery section. Speak to you soon.

28 January, Back To The Tour

Hi everyone, in case you have forgotten, my name is Justin Rose! I know it has been a long time since I have been in touch, so I'm just reintroducing myself. The end of the 2007 season went by rapidly, with a trip to China for the World Cup with my partner Ian Poulter (where we finished 4th), and then the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City in South Africa, where I had an exciting finish with a chance to win coming down the stretch. I then spent a couple of weeks in South Africa just before Christmas without my golf clubs, which was awesome and a much needed break.

Since coming back to the States at the beginning of January, I have been working hard on my fitness and my game, as I have taken January as my “off season”. I also had a fun week with the fourth JR Challenge, this year hosted in Nassau, the Bahamas. I was leading going into the final (third) round by three shots over Macca and Jonny McGlashan, but coming down the stretch Mark McDonnell (Sparky) was the strongest out of all of us, scoring a best of the week 39 points, and winning by four shots over Macca. Again. But congrats to Macca for the fourth year in a row that he has finished second! For those of you who have watched Casino Royal (the latest Bond movie), we stayed at Albany House which was amazing...right on the beach, so in between playing golf, we enjoyed jetskiing in the morning - we could hardly get George and Chris Allen off the jetskis, it was like the scene out of Only Fools and Horses! These are the guys that I grew up playing golf with as a junior, and we try to always get a boys week away playing golf each year.

Back to work, and last week I had a busy time at the Orlando Trade Show, as many of my sponsors were in town, and it was a good chance to catch up with them. This week I am testing new products with TaylorMade on their new Burner Tour and CGB LTD drivers for 2008, and the new Red LDP golf ball. The guys have come from Carlsbad to do the testing at Lake Nona and my coach Nick Bradley is here to oversee it all. Also Macca has made the long trip over from Abu Dhabi, as he will be attending most of my events on each side of the Atlantic and be my Taylormade equipment person.

My first event is in LA the second week of February, and I am really looking forward to getting back out on the PGA Tour - it feels like it's been a long time, and it has, as my last PGA Tour event was the Tour Champs in September! Speak to you from there, and a belated Happy New Year! Justin