Rose will ignore his track record in pursuit of hat-trick
Rose produced a flawless closing 65 to win the Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen on Sunday, a fortnight after winning the Quicken Loans National on the PGA Tour.
It is the first time in his career that Rose has won consecutive events and the 33-year-old knows making it a hat-trick will be a massive ask at Hoylake given his previous Open record.
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Hide AdSince famously finishing fourth as a 17-year-old amateur in 1998, Rose has not recorded another top-10 finish in 11 attempts, missing the cut in three of the last four years.
But perhaps there is a good omen in the fact that Tiger Woods was the last player to make a major championship his third consecutive victory, winning the Open the last time it was staged at Hoylake in 2006, then adding the Buick Open and the US PGA Championship in a run of seven straight strokeplay wins that season.
“I’ve tried to see it as my home major and I am not paying attention to that now,” Rose said. “A major is a major.
“If Tiger is playing the US Open he doesn’t think, ‘This is my home major’, it’s just another major championship. From that perspective I am just trying to deflect any extra pressure and although my recent Open record is not good, I do take confidence from Turnberry in 2009 for example.
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Hide Ad“Even though the record book won’t suggest it [he finished 13th], I was right in the hunt there. I played beautiful golf that week, good enough to win and I know that. There’s been a few occasions where I’ve had good runs and a few occasions where I’ve been on the bad side of the draw.
“If you go out and play wonderful golf you can make up for the draw, but if you are sort of borderline the draw can make a big difference too. I am trying not to pay too much attention to it (my record) but I have played great links golf in my career in different times so I just have to put it all together next week.”
Rose won the US Open at Merion last year and added: “I’ve got a nice trophy case with varying sizes to fit all options so hopefully there will be more.”