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THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

July 21, 2007

Justin Rose

CARNOUSTIE, SCOTLAND

STEWART McDOUGALL: Ladies and gentlemen, Justin Rose, 67, 4-under par for a total of 212, 1-under par for the Championship.
Justin, that brought you back into contention. How do you feel things will go from now on, tomorrow's round, the final day?
JUSTIN ROSE: I don't know. I haven't even got my head around tomorrow yet. Obviously I knew I needed -- I had a job to do today. Well, I had a job to do yesterday, obviously I had to make the cut yesterday. Yesterday was about getting myself back into the tournament, today was to get myself back into contention. The round went according to plans. It put me in decent shape. Who knows what the leaders are going to do. Certainly I felt -- I've done what I felt I could today.

Q. Do you feel inside that you've actually got a really low round inside you to come tomorrow?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think there is something. I'm beginning to putt well. The putter is beginning to feel comfortable in my hands, which it hasn't done, if I'm honest, for the last four weeks. I'm certainly hitting the ball well. If you're hitting the ball nicely and you do make a few putts, obviously that equals a low score. This course you can't force the score around here, either. Sometimes -- 67 is a good score around here, to go much lower than that you're going to have to really make a lot of putts.

Q. Nick has talked about you as one of the guys that other players will eat lunch with but you're also one of the people that can actually make the breakthrough. Do you feel you're too friendly or chummy?
JUSTIN ROSE: Not really, no. I feel like I am who I am. And I feel like I've figured out what works for me. I feel like I've been learning all the time and I feel I've been getting better and better and better at finishing the job off, if you like, in the biggest situations, i.e., majors.
I think what I've learned this year more than any year I think -- the inner confidence and self-belief is getting stronger and stronger. And that's all I need. If you believe in yourself, nobody else needs to know that, as long as you do.

Q. You talked about not forcing it. And you played pretty well in the first round. Yet at times in the first round it looked as though maybe you did force it on a couple of occasions. What was your thoughts about that?
JUSTIN ROSE: I got off to what I thought was a really nice start. I felt very comfortable on the first day through ten holes. I three-putted 10 and that kind of just upset my momentum a little bit. I don't know what it was about the first day. But I just -- I don't know, yeah, certainly the round unraveled and I did feel very tired when I came off the 18th green.
I don't know, I just seemed to lose my edge, really. So it was more of a focus, concentration thing, definitely, on the second day. I don't think it was anything to do with my golf game. It was just a little bit of a lapse in concentration for whatever reason, which is a shame.
But at the same time I was very pleased with the way I played on Friday. I thought the course wasn't that easy at all. And I knew what I had to do, and I hardly missed a shot yesterday. And shot 70 and felt it could have been better, and today the same, really. The first out today, I don't know what to put it down to other than I seemed to lose my concentration a little bit.

Q. Are you going to go to the range now and work on anything specific for tomorrow?
JUSTIN ROSE: No, I mean, nothing is going to change. I'm just going to stick to my same routines, things that I've been doing. I may just keep working on the putting a little bit. I might go and work a little bit harder on my chipping. I haven't needed to chip that much, I seemed to miss greens and be in bunkers when I needed to miss greens, maybe work on my chipping, simple as that.

Q. You said that you felt a little more comfortable than it has been for four weeks. What have you done to bring that about?
JUSTIN ROSE: I've really sort of upped the amount of time I've been spending on the putting green, pre the tournament and also during the tournament. I've been spending longer amounts of time in my warm up focused -- dedicated to my putting. I think putting, there's no substitute for time. It's basically all just touch and feel. The more time you devote to it, the better.

Q. It's chilly and breezy out there. How would you characterize the scoring conditions compared, say, to yesterday or Thursday?
JUSTIN ROSE: I would say maybe the flag placements are just slightly more friendly today, and that's potentially why there's some good scores out there. The flags maybe seem to suit the wind direction somewhat. That's what I felt, anyway. I felt like -- I could just see a shot into most pins today, whereas some of the other days it was very hard to get the ball close.

Q. Does that not just happen when you're playing well?
JUSTIN ROSE: Probably, yeah, probably. But, yeah, the wind is pretty much as it's been all week. It's from a very slightly different direction, but not enough to make a difference. But I think maybe the odd pin or maybe I hit my tee shot in a slightly better position to get an angle to the flag. But I felt I could be more aggressive today from the fairway.

Q. Does it come as a relief not to be in the Tiger group with all its distractions, and are you able to play with a bit more freedom?
JUSTIN ROSE: No, to be honest with you. I felt really, really good the first two days. I felt completely into my game, the golf course, the things I should be thinking about, except the back nine. Certainly I'm just trying to rule that out of the equation.
Other than that, I felt the other nine holes played really good golf this week. There certainly are distractions that come into playing with Tiger; it's the media, the amount of people inside the ropes, and that's really the tough thing playing with him. It's not the fact of him whatsoever. He's a perfect gentleman out there, and actually we had a really good three-ball and had a lot of fun. It was good.

Q. Is it going to have to be a bit more all-out attack tomorrow in the way Augusta and Oakmont wasn't because you were right in the thick of it then and couldn't afford to make mistakes so had to play smart, as well?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I think -- yeah, but it's a tricky -- yeah, you can take it on, but then you risk making -- I can't afford to make too many bogeys tomorrow. So rather than get the ball in play off the tee and feel like -- see how you feel from there.
I just want it to come down to hit lots of fairways and lots of green and hopefully have a hot day with the putter, rather than trying to force birdies on the golf course.

Q. Unless something extraordinary happens, it looks like you'll go out tomorrow five, six groups ahead of the leaders at that point. That could work to your advantage, couldn't it?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, it could do. Paul Lawrie was in a similar position, I would have thought, a few years ago. It's the kind of golf course that's not going to be bad to post a number. We all know the finish round is difficult. If somebody does post a number a few groups ahead, it's certainly going to get the leaders' attention, definitely.

Q. Is there a number right now in your head that you would ideally like to post?
JUSTIN ROSE: If I said 5-under it would make you happy, wouldn't it?

Q. Would you think 5-under?
JUSTIN ROSE: To be honest with you, right now it's impossible to tell. Anything could happen in the next three hours, four hours with the weather. I heard there's rain coming. So it really depends on where the leaders get to, simple as that.
I don't know, it's hard to call a number right now. For me, yeah, I'd like to shoot 5-under 67. I'd be happy with that. I might come up a couple short, who knows. But certainly I'll be going out to shoot as low a score as I can. But I'm not going out there tomorrow to necessarily put a number on it.

Q. Considering a couple of years when you were hardly playing majors, to have a chance to win each of the first three, that must tell something, that you've improved?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, definitely, definitely. It's just another step in the right direction. It's another little piece of confidence that you can draw on, another good performance. But it's only three rounds through. So obviously tournaments are four days long, and I've got a job to do. I'm certainly not relaxing in the fact I've got myself into contention. I think it was the next step. Tomorrow is another go and another step forward.

Q. Do you always get a good night's sleep on the Saturday night when you're in contention?
JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I do, to be honest. Yes, I do now. No, maybe in the past -- I remember Augusta in '04 -- was it '04 or '03, I can't remember now -- I didn't sleep very well, definitely. But now I sleep, I sleep fine.

Q. What in your head, in your own imagination, did you win your first Open?
JUSTIN ROSE: When? It was probably seven years old.

Q. Do you remember the score (laughter)?
JUSTIN ROSE: 5-under (laughter).
STEWART McDOUGALL: Justin, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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