Rose's career soon became established on the European Tour. He won his first professional event, the Dunhill Championship in South Africa, in 2002, and followed this up with three further victories in that year. In 2003, he reached number 33 in the Official World Golf Rankings. In 2004, he played mainly in America on the PGA Tour, while also maintaining his membership of the European Tour.

Rose抯 best result of the year in 2005 came at the Buick Championship where he was leading after three rounds before slipping to a third place finish. One or two further good results followed late in the 2005 season, and he stayed on the PGA Tour after all.

In November 2006 Rose won the Australian Masters, to claim his first title for four years. His renewed consistency, including a top 5 finish at the 2007 Masters has seen him surpass his previous best world ranking, by reaching number 26 on 8 April 2007.

Rose lost in a playoff at the 2007 BMW PGA Championship, but moved into the top twenty of the World Rankings for the first time, and by October had reached a new career high of 12 and became the top ranked British golfer. Rose won the European Tour Order of Merit title for 2007 in a thrilling climax to the season at the Volvo Masters, which he won in a playoff on 4 November. His new world ranking of number 7 made him the top-ranked European golfer for the first time, and he subsequently moved up to sixth in the rankings.

In 2010, Rose had a third place at the Honda Classic, and then he broke through with a victory at the Memorial Tournament with a final round 66 to win by three strokes over Rickie Fowler. This was his first win on American soil with his second following shortly after at the AT&T National.

The 2011 season was quieter for Rose until September when he won his third PGA event at the BMW Championship. The start of 2012 saw Rose win his first World Golf Championship event at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, when he finished one stroke ahead of Bubba Watson. As a result Rose returned to the world's top ten, re-entering at number seven.