Rose's Open dreams hit by wild swings

Sadly, Rose will travel north from his London apartment more in hope than expectation.

The player, who as an amateur chipped in at the last to finish tied for fourth place at the 1998 Royal Birkdale Open, and who then went on to win important tournaments in South Africa, Japan and on home ground in the British Masters, is currently more inconsistent than the summer weather.

The stats tell the story. Compared with last year his game is worse in every significant category.

As a result Rose has tumbled out of the world's top 50 who gain automatic qualification to the major tournaments. He tried to get into The Open through the international qualifying event at Sunningdale last week, but a brilliant 65 in the first round was followed by a crushing 73 in the afternoon.

There was another opportunity at the European Open in Ireland at the weekend. A second-round 75 at the K Club left him languishing out of contention-but then Rose, who has always been a fighter, returned a courserecord 65 for the last round that included a double bogey at the first.

Ask him for an explanation for this roller-coaster form and he replies: "I wish I knew. I seem to blow hotandcold at the moment. I'm just a bit gutted, to be honest with you."

If there was financial reward for honesty Rose would be considerably richer than he is now. And he's already a millionaire.

Even when he was enduring that infamous run of 21 missed cuts after turning professional in the heady wake of his success at Birkdale, Rose would always front up with a genuine assessment of his game and where it was going wrong. It did look as though the remedial work he put in with Leadbetter was going to bear fruit earlier this year.

In the United States he led the Masters until carding a third-round 81 but typically Rose bounced back with three top-10 finishes including fourth place in the Memorial Tournament.

"That's what is so frustrating," he said. "I had a good spell of events and I felt I was playing really well. Then I had a couple of bad weeks which were unexplainable.

"It could be really good again. It is just a case of finding one little 'feel' that works and I'll be away."

Here's hoping Rose has Leadbetter's website address.