:: June 09
THE TIMES ONLINE, JUNE 21, 2009 - JUSTIN ROSE'S US OPEN DIARY: I KNOW MY GAME WILL COME RIGHT, BUT WHEN?
It is not glaringly obvious what is wrong with my golf at the moment. I am not sure I know what the problem is. But obviously missing the cut in the US Open was very disappointing and I don't need to be reminded that it was my second missed cut in succession.
Once I knew for sure I wasn't going to be playing the last two rounds we jumped into the car and drove into Manhattan and Kate and I will have a nice dinner together tonight while my Mum looks after Leo.
It was raining when we arrived and it looked a bit dreary but I still loved the New York skyline as we approached. Other people may talk about the electricity in the air in Manhattan but I love the skyline. I could look at it for hours.
I wanted to get away from Bethpage and as I am playing in the Travelers Championship in Connecticut next week and in Washington the week after there was no point in going home to Orlando and then coming back up here almost immediately.
I think a couple of days like this this is the sort of thing I need to help me snap out my slump. I think I might be trying too hard. Fooch, my caddie, thinks, it's all to do with my short game. Nick [Bradley], my coach, is bemused. He keeps saying he can't see anything. I don't think I am having enough days off, days when I don't think about the game. I have played my best golf when I play as much as I have to and then make sure that I do something else on other days, to refresh my mind.
If I keep worrying about whether I have been practising enough, or practising the right parts of the game, then I am not going to improve. It's like the yellow line trick. Anyone can walk along it but ask them to do it when their life depends on it and suddenly it becomes very difficult.
I know it will come right but I am beginning to wonder just when?
I have made tentative plans for when I return to Britain early next month. There is my charity day to be staged at Stoke Park and then I think I will go to Ireland and play some links golf. I have never done that before the Open. Last year I played Birkdale in May and I don't think that was enough preparation. I'll go to Ireland with Fooch, Nick and probably a couple of mates to make sure it isn't too intense.
Tiger used to warm up for the Open by playing in Ireland. And I hear Harrington has played and won the Irish PGA Championship the week before the Open for the past two years. So it hasn't done him any harm either. Let's hope something similar will rub off on me.
THE TIMES ONLINE, JUNE 20, 2009 - JUSTIN ROSE'S US OPEN DIARY: UP AGAINST IT TO MAKE THE CUT
Arghghgggghhhh!!!!!
If you don't understand what that means it means I am so, so frustrated. I played the first 15 holes beautifully today to be one under par. I was in perfect US Open mode, being careful, not making any silly mistakes, not being greedy, taking my chances when they were presented. I was concentrating well, focused and in control.
On the 16th I was in the middle of the green and facing a putt that I fancied. I can hole this and go to two under I thought to myself. Come on Jus! I charged the first putt a little past the hole, missed the return and suddenly from thinking I could be two under par I found myself level par.
Then I thinned a bunker shot on the 17th to run up a double bogey on the par 3 and missed the fairway on the last to slip back to plus three.
Then I had only 90 minutes, if that, to grab something to eat and get ready to go out again for the second round and I dropped three more strokes before the siren went and play was ended for the day. That leaves me on six over par. I need some birdies when I start tomorrow. I don't want to have to rely on the ten shot rule, which means every player who is within ten shots of the halfway leader goes through to the last two rounds.
It was a long day. I don't often play nearly 29 holes in one day in a tournament. Actually it was not that long a day, if I'm honest. I have had many days like this at regular tournaments but to start playing at 11.06 and finish at 8.26pm with only a short break in between is a hard day's work at a major championship where the pressure is so much greater because the examination is so much stiffer.
I did not hole out tonight on the 2nd, my 11th. I exercised my right to mark my putt and return to it in the morning when the greens will be fresh, there won't be any spike marks and the light should be better. I'll do my normal warm up and add in a few more 14-foot putts for practice before I go out there in the morning.
I am up against it a bit. I need to play some quality golf. There is one par 5 that is reachable, the 4th, my 13th. A birdie there would help me. I have to put today out of my mind and focus on the last few holes. I have to forget my frustration.
Arghghgggghhhh!!!!!
THE TIMES ONLINE, JUNE 18, 2009
JUSTIN ROSE'S US OPEN DIARY: FAMILY STOP ME FROM GOING CRAZY
When I woke up at 8.00 this morning and looked out of my hotel window and saw the puddles I thought there might be trouble. When I turned on the television and saw them squeegeeing the greens at 9.30, I resigned myself to not playing. I didn't think there was any chance of my teeing off at 1.36 as expected.
And I was right. I had to keep myself ready in case there was a call to restart late in the day and I had to play one hole starting at 7pm tonight but once they abandoned play for the day I relaxed.
I have had one of those days when I was grateful I had Kate, my wife, and Leo, our child, travelling with me, as well as my mother. We had a nice family day together. If I had been in the hotel by myself I would have gone crazy.
I went to the gym to make sure I didn't become too lethargic and stiff and to help me get ready for the second round. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I am resigned to having to play at least 27 holes but at least I shall be teeing off in mid morning.
I think we all realise we will be here until Monday. If we are here until Tuesday then that will be new ground for many of us.
I didn't know about the 1987 US Women's Open when play went on to Tuesday with an 18-hole playoff but there is a possibility that could happen here with the way the weather has been these past weeks.
Thinking back on the abandonment today, I reckon some of the guys will be grateful it happened. The heavy rain saved them. Supposing it had been just a little less heavy then they would have had to play their entire round in bad weather and it could have been really bad for them? As it is they were stopped after six or seven holes or whatever it was and given a chance to score better another day.
THE TIMES ONLINE, JUNE 18, 2009 - JUSTIN ROSE’S DIARY FROM US OPEN: FORGET ABOUT TWEETING, I JUST WANT BIRDIES
Everyone is talking about Twitter and tweeting. Until Ian Poulter started doing it I hadn't paid any attention to Twitter. I had heard people talking about it but I didn't know how it worked. It's fun but it's not for me. I have a hard enough time keeping on top of my text and e-mail messages as it is.
I flew up here [to New York for the US Open] on Monday morning with Poults. He loves gadgets and all the craziness that goes with them. He is very different to me. For me, tweeting is another thing to add to what is already rather a crazy lifestyle.
One of my biggest problems is I find it hard to have downtime. Kate, my wife, is a big believer in that when it is family time the phone should be off. I need to get away from things, to shut off the outside world.
I played nine holes with Poults and Ross Fisher on Monday. It took quite a while - three hours and ten minutes! I liked the course on my first sight of it. I thought it was not overly tricked-up for a US Open course. It was very playable and very fair. But it sure was long with all the rain they have had.
The mistake I made at last year's US Open at Torrey Pines, San Diego, where I failed to make the cut, was that I focused too much on my long game. I was playing well but lacking in the short-game department. The reality is that the guys who are playing well still miss greens, still hit bad shots.
I was disappointed to have to pull out of the BMW PGA at Wentworth last month because my back flared up. But I recovered quickly. Antoni Jakubowski, my chiropractor, helped me to get back on the straight and narrow. I have also started working with a new fitness trainer, Justin Buckthorp. I am really excited about what I have been doing with him. Right now I feel as fit as I have felt for a long, long time.
The weather was fantastic when we were at home in England last month. From a lifestyle perspective it was great to go and have a coffee on the river in London, to hang out and catch up with my friends. It wasn't a wasted trip, even though I didn't play Wentworth. I went out and played a round at Worplesdon, at the New Zealand. The plan was to go round Surrey and play the hidden gems I hadn't really played before. New Zealand is an old-school golf course and club. It is great. It is 5,800 yards and I don't think I broke par.
One day Kate and I strolled around London and found ourselves near Downing Street. It was the time of the MPs' expenses row. The media were camped out there. I don't know enough about the issue but the whole thing stinks. You could smell a rat and it is not nice when there are so many families in the country struggling and there are people claiming for helipads.
God knows what happened to me at the Memorial Tournament at the start of the month, where I missed the cut. I hit the same amount of greens as Luke Donald in the first round. He shot 64 and I shot 80. OK he was hitting the ball closer to the flagstick than I was, but you know ...
I have not been scoring well. I have got to be really patient now. It is a game of patience. If you get advice from Gary Player and Eduardo Romero, all the guys who have been round the block and who still view me as a young man, they say: "Be patient, it is going to happen. You have time on your side."
This is going to be an emotional US Open because of Amy Mickelson, the wife of Phil who was found to have breast cancer last month. Amy is the kind of person who gets two weeks' work done in a day, a mother of three who takes the kids here, there and everywhere, e-mails, stays on top of things and is really bright.
You look at her and you think: "a beautiful, vibrant young woman who appears to have everything in the world." It shows you how fickle life is and the fact that you're a pro golfer does not mean you are immune to any of that sort of stuff.
To read more about Justin go to JustinRose.com
