Rose flowers just-in time

Justin Rose, who once missed 21 consecutive cuts early in his career, has produced such a spectacular turnaround that he will go into next week’s British Open as golf’s hottest player.

The 29-year-old Briton has won twice in the last month on the US PGA Tour and could easily have made it a hat-trick.

Rose launched his blistering run of form by winning the Memorial Tournament in Ohio at the start of June. He then blew a three-stroke lead on the final day of the Travelers Championship in Connecticut before lifting last week’s AT&T National title in Pennsylvania.

“Winning on the PGA Tour is a stepping stone to winning major championships,” he told reporters. “There doesn’t get a much bigger arena unless it’s a major.

“It is great practice. You get the feeling playing on the PGA Tour in big events that you’re playing at the highest level with a sense of pressure and that really helps you going into major championships.”

Rose said he had travelled a long road since bursting on the scene as a teenage amateur by tying for fourth place in the 1998 British Open at Royal Birkdale.

“I feel like I’ve had two or three careers,” he said. “I feel like I’m two or three different people — the young kid, the journeyman and then the working my way to being the player I wanted to be in the first place.

FEEL THE HEAT

“Playing today is a lot easier than grinding to make cuts especially the way I had it — missing 21 in a row. It felt like every time I had a chance to make a cut, cameras would appear out of the trees and suddenly I would feel the heat.

“That’s how I perceived it. I felt like there was that pressure on me — that was hard.”

Rose’s performances were up and down until he climbed to number six in the world rankings after winning the 2007 European money list. He then made his Ryder Cup debut a year later despite struggling for most of 2008 and 2009.

The tall Englishman, though, is back up to 16th in the world after his scintillating run in the US

“That’s not what is driving me,” said Rose. “It’s how good I can get at this game, that’s a personal challenge and a personal quest.

“That’s really all I am focused on.”

Rose is also concentrating on doing well at St Andrews next week in the oldest of golf’s four majors. He has dubbed it his

”Bogey Open” after missing the last two editions at the home of golf in 2000 and 2005.

“It’s a place I love,” he said. “How can you not love St Andrews? You’ve just got to stand on the first tee there and you feel like you’re part of something special.

“To do it at the Open is something very special and that’s been my goal for the last few weeks.”