Scottish Open is ‘on the cards’ for Justin Rose

Justin Rose: Open preparations. Picture: Getty

The Englishman looks set to add the Aberdeen Asset Management-sponsored event to his schedule in a bid to improve a “disappointing” recent record in the Open Championship.

“I am thinking of adding Scotland this year,” said Rose, who finished fifth behind Argentina’s Eduardo Romero at Loch Lomond in 2002 but only played in the first of the event’s three stagings at Castle Stuart  in 2011, when he was joint-14th behind compatriot Luke Donald

“It’s on the cards,” he added. “I felt like I haven’t played well in the Open Championship for a number of years now, and clearly that’s disappointing, so I might just be changing my preparations a little bit and how I do things.

“I maybe won’t take the family back home, because it gets so busy when I get back. I don’t want to get wrapped up in, I guess, yeah, making it a holiday, really, which is what happens every year. I want to go into that a little more focused.”

Rose’s best effort in the world’s oldest major remains his fourth-place finish as a 17-year-old amateur at Royal Birkdale in 1998. In three of the last four years, he has missed the cut.

Another Scottish date in Rose’s sights is September’s Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, which has just been awarded the golf industry’s leading ecolabel, GEO Certified™. “It matches with our own approach to find ways to minimise the footprint of the event,” said Ryder Cup Europe’s match director Edward Kitson.

Elsewhere, Bradley Neil, Graeme Robertson, Jack McDonald and Scott Borrowman set out at Sotogrande in Spain today bidding to land Scotland’s first European Nations Cup success since 2008.