11 August 2026 16:30 (UTC)
Exploring the parallels between racing and golf with Justin Rose and Zak Brown
While Formula 1 pauses for breath with its traditional summer break, before barrelling into the second half of the season, the month of August will be a crucial one for a McLaren sportsman of a different stripe – golfer Justin Rose.
For the world Number 12, the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis and the BMW Championship in St Louis are vital next steps in an evolving journey that began almost two years ago when clubhouse conversations and friendly playing partnerships turned into a quest to build a new way of playing for the 27-time global title winner.
Rose, the 2013 US Open winner and 2016 Olympic gold medallist, spent the majority of his career as a manufacturer-aligned player, but a new partnership in 2019 led to a four-year winless spell that eventually prompted him to play as an independent, drawing from a bag of carefully chosen but mismatched clubs. The strategy served Rose well, but in 2024 something changed.
A long-time friend of McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, a regular playing partner of F1 World Champion Lando Norris and a frequent visitor to the McLaren garage at races, Justin’s deep connection to the team sparked a radical idea. What if McLaren were to take F1 innovation and engineering know-how and apply it to the design and manufacture of golf clubs? What if Justin were to accelerate that development with his skill, experience and competitive rigour? McLaren Golf was born.
Launched ahead of the Miami Grand Prix earlier this year, Justin’s partnership with McLaren Golf is still at a very early stage, but there have already been some promising signs. Top 12 finishes at this year’s PGA Championship and the US Open marked an impressive first for a new club manufacturer.
The coming weeks then are hugely important as he tries to seal a spot at the FedEx Cup Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, Georgia. Only the top 30 Cup points scorers from across regular FedEx events will be eligible for a shot at the top prize of $10 million. Rose currently sits 22nd on the points table.
But while form ebbs and flows, Justin is certain that the partnership with McLaren Golf is the way forward, a risk-and-reward endeavour that perfectly fuses the worlds of Formula 1 and professional golf.
“It’s such a great fit,” Rose says of his partnership with McLaren Golf. “Obviously, with the way the business is in Automotive and Racing, the way the team thinks about performance, quality and engineering, and even the handcrafting, it’s all there.
“I’m excited about what is currently in my golf bag. Obviously, being part of the advisory team [that shaped the design] has been fun. I’ve been able to put a few of my ideas forward to the team and see what they’ve come back with. It’s pretty cool.”
It’s a feeling that extends throughout the team, as McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown confirms.
“There are a ton of synergies between racing and golf,” he says. “There’s a tremendous amount of precision engineering in the clubs. Something I’m also always interested in talking to Rosie about is the mental side of golf. There isn’t a sport more challenging than golf. It has got to be the most stressful because of how much time you have to think about what you’re doing.”
For Justin, his racing parallel is designed to counter that isolation and negativity – it’s all about teamwork.
“As I progressed through my career and faced the various challenges I had, I realised I needed support. I love it because they become my family out there on Tour. I love hanging out with them. I have a wonderful team around me. The only analogy I have is that I feel like it’s bowling with the bumpers up. If I, as an individual, veer off course a little bit, there’s always someone to help nudge me back on track. They’re great people, and we have a collective goal. If you get the team culture and team spirit right, the sum of the parts lifts everybody.”
It’s a sentiment Zak can identify with. Changing the culture and building an environment in which team members can thrive and deliver world-beating performance were key components of his early years at the helm.
“It’s all about people,” he insists. “You can see that on the golf course. When you win, there are a bunch of people who come out and celebrate as though they won with you, because they did win with you. It’s the same thing at McLaren. When we win on Sunday, everybody knows how much they contributed to that victory. Whether you’re on the race team, in the finance department, in HR or in any other department, we all have our own race car to develop. Then it all has to come together, and you win.”
However, the McLaren CEO adds that, while delivering winning performance is dependent on relentless improvement, it also requires an ability to let unsuccessful moments go.
“If I could instil one performance principle in everyone at the team, I’d use a golf analogy: forget about your last shot, especially if it wasn’t good, and think about your next shot. It’s something I always admire when I watch golfers because, in racing, you have the benefit of not having much time to think about the next shot or the next corner, so you’re living by instinct. In golf, speaking of my own game at least, you hit a bad shot and then have minutes to continue thinking about it.”
The world Number 12 admits that, in golf, those moments are not easy to shake off, and pressure is a constant companion. However, Justin deals with the intensity of a crucial drive or putt in an unexpected way.
“For me, I have to kid myself,” he says. “I’ve got to play games with my head. I’ve got to tell myself that the more I can be like a kid in that environment, and the more playful I can be, the better I am.
“I remember holing a putt at the Ryder Cup, and it was really just about pretending I was on the putting green, finishing off a drill that I do daily. I do a thing called the Hurricane. I’ve got three-foot, four-foot, five-foot, six-foot and seven-foot putts expanding out in a little circle. I was like, ‘okay, this is just the end of your Hurricane drill. Knock it in.’ The putt disappeared into the hole, and suddenly I exploded into this elated state.”
He adds that dealing with pressure often comes down to acceptance.
“What you have to come to grips with is being okay with it. Pressure doesn’t feel comfortable, but it’s necessary,” he says. “I’ve learnt that I’ve actually played my best golf when I’ve been nervous. I’ve been shaking over putts and figured out how to hole them.”
For Zak, while the intensity is there on the pit wall, it is a shared pressure. He insists that his best way of navigating it is to trust and support the strategists and engineers alongside him, both in the garage and at the factory.
“I try not to get in their way because, ultimately, my role is to make sure everyone has what they need,” he explains. “They don’t need me coming in on Monday morning quarter-backing when I think they should have made a pit stop. On the pit wall, I’m only communicating with Andrea, sharing some words of encouragement and letting the subject matter experts get on with it.
“Otherwise, I follow my routine. For me, walking past the cars and the history [at the MTC] is a lot of fun. These are all the cars I watched racing when I was growing up, so coming here and seeing the cars I grew up, watching and the drivers I idolised, is fun. By the time I sit down at my desk, I’m already in the right frame of mind.
“Then there’s being around other sports. Lando and I play golf frequently. I’m trying to see whether I can get Oscar into playing some golf. It’s fun to get out and play, while also appreciating what it is like to be around the best in the world in other sports. When you actually see Rosie hit the ball and watch how he plays… I’m just trying to hit it straight by more than five feet, but you watch him and it’s, ‘Land it here, backspin it there.’ It’s just amazing to watch athletes at the top of their game.”
For Justin, the next month brings new opportunities to reach that peak. And if success comes, it will be similar to that achieved on the racetrack, where iteration and preparation are everything.
“You’ve got to have your goals, but I’m definitely more process-driven than outcome-driven,” he says. “Of course, I want to win. There’s no doubt that dream is out there, but what do I actually have to do to achieve it? What are the boxes I need to tick?
“And when it’s not going well, don’t lose belief in the system. Keep following the daily habits, keep believing in the process. Try to draw on competence rather than confidence.”
Zak agrees: “In any sport in which you’re competing against the best in the world, you are going to lose more than you win. Emotion is dangerous. Passion is awesome, and there’s a fine line between the two. When you’re in a passionate state, you’re very focused and very hungry. When you’re in an emotional state, you might go off-piste.”
The final word goes to Rose, and it is a mindset that applies equally to the fairway and the racetrack.
“Being emotional means that you’re being bullied by the situation,” he concludes. “If you have a blueprint and a plan, stick to them. That plan needs to be good, but that’s what the beginning of the season is for. That’s why you employ a team: to come up with a good plan. It’s all about trusting it throughout the year, throughout the season.”
