Lee Westwood is entering The Open Championship optimistic he can contend as he hopes to have cleared the "mental block" he had at Royal St George's.
The 48-year-old fell away from a promising position at the Scottish Open last week but is confident his game is in a good place.
Westwood missed the cut in 2003 and 2011 when the tournament was last played at the Kent links, but he has attempted to banish those memories for the last major of 2021.
"Coming into this week, I've played here twice in the Open Championship, missed the cut both times," he said.
"Kind of had it in my head, a bit of a mental block that I didn't like the golf course, but I played it [on Tuesday] and really enjoyed it.
"I loved the way it was set up. I couldn't really remember the golf course too much, probably because I didn't have that much experience of playing on it, only having played two rounds each Open.
"I really enjoyed it. Enjoyed the conditions and it sort of turned my head around and made me look forward to the week even more really.
"I'm positive and hoping I can find some form and get into contention. Like all links tournaments, you need a little bit of luck with the weather, you need some good breaks.
"I did win around here as an amateur, so I've had some kind of form around here in the past. I'm just trying to look at it more positively than I've missed two cuts.
"There will be underlying facts there; I might not have been playing well or my head might not have been in the right place.
"I feel like if I get my game where it needs to be and it's good for that week, I can contend."
Phil Mickelson won the US PGA Championship to become the oldest major champion at the age of 50 this year.
Westwood was therefore asked if that meant he still had hope of winning one as he prepares to make his 88th major appearance.
He said: "We're from a generation that's maybe had the benefit of sports medicine and maybe a little bit more analytical, knowing what's going on.
"Tiger [Woods] came on the scene and everybody sort of took that a little bit more seriously mid to late '90s. All the other players that wanted to get ahead of the game sort of looked to him.
"Rather than [golf being an] 'I've been working out for six months thing' and 'this is a quick-fix thing', it's a long-term thing with the likes of myself and Phil, Stewart Cink, people like that playing.
"Look at Bernhard Langer – he's playing well into his 60s because he's looked after himself 30 years ago, not because he started going in the gym three weeks ago.
"Mine and Phil's generation are now reaping the benefits of the hard work for the last 20 years, analysing movements in the swing and working on injury prevention to those parts of the body that get injured."
Rory McIlroy in striking distance as he chases Canadian Open hat-trick
Rory McIlroy’s bid for a third successive Canadian Open title stepped up a gear as he moved into a tie for second heading into the final round in Toronto.
McIlroy’s third round 66 leaves him two behind leader CT Pan and in a group of six players tied on 12-under-par, which includes English duo Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose.
They are joined by Americans Mark Hubbard, Harry Higgs and Andrew Novak while England’s Aaron Rai is a stroke further back after a 69 left him alongside Canada’s Nick Taylor, who broke the Oakdale Golf & Country Club course record with a 63.
Tyrell Hatton, who was tied second with Rai and Pan at halfway after a second round 64, slipped six strokes off the pace with a 72.
Victory on Sunday would make McIlroy the first player to win three consecutive Canadian Opens – over the space of five years due to Covid cancellations – and the first on the PGA Tour since Steve Stricker in 2009-11.
McIlroy fired six birdies in a blemish-free round and admitted conditions were set up for low scoring after the previous day’s rain.
“It was prime for scoring,” said McIlroy, who will chase a second US Open title in Los Angeles next week. “It’s really that back nine you need to take advantage of. But it was nice to sort of have what I felt was a cushion after playing the front nine so well.
“I’ve never won a tournament three times in a row. I felt like last year the win wasn’t just for me, it was for a few other things. But this one, this year, if I were able to get over the line, will be solely for me.”
Last year’s win came in the midst of LIV Golf’s birth while McIlroy headed into this week’s tournament having said he felt like “a sacrificial lamb” in the wake of the merger between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the rival Saudi-backed circuit.
“For whatever reason, I seem to play better when there’s a little bit of noise going on in the world of golf,” he said.
“It’s really nice to get inside the ropes and just concentrate on my job at the end of the day, which is trying to get the ball around the golf course.”
Rose, who won his US Open title 10 years ago, shot into contention as he birdied five straight holes from the 12th and added another on the last.
Fleetwood, who is still looking for his first win in the US, would have matched the course record if it were not for Taylor’s earlier effort.
Pan, from Taiwan, birded the final two holes in a round of 66 as he chases a second tour title.
Dale Whitnell takes four-shot lead into final round in Stockholm
England’s Dale Whitnell will take a four-shot lead into the final round of the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed as he goes in search of a first DP World Tour title in Sweden.
A stunning 61 on day two in Stockholm had handed him a six-shot advantage after 36 holes and despite dropping a first shot of the week on the second, he responded with four birdies in his next five holes to lead by eight.
He would not have it all his own way, however, as he made a double-bogey on the ninth after a poor tee-shot and another on the 16th after finding the water, although birdies on the 10th and 15th limited the damage.
German Ryder Cup hopeful Yannik Paul had cut the advantage to three with a tap-in birdie at the last as he completed a 68 but playing partner Whitnell followed him in from 15 feet to get to 19 under after a 70 and stay in pole position for victory.
“I had a couple of instances where it didn’t quite go to plan but I thought I kept my head, just tried to plug away and take one shot at a time,” he said.
“It is hard to go through a round of golf without dropping a shot, let alone two or three or four, so I sort of stuck to my guns, had a gameplan and tried to execute it.
“I mean it wasn’t a bad day, it wasn’t exactly ideal but it was more than acceptable.”
Scotland’s Richie Ramsay was six shots off the pace after a 69 as he looks for a fifth DP World Tour victory and second in as many seasons.
“The boys are playing well in front but I’m within touching distance and the goal was always to be in the mix on the back nine and I feel the back nine has a lot of opportunities,” he said.
“If I can just sort of jostle for position a little bit I can be right there, but you don’t know what they are going to do, all you have got to do is give your best, your 100 per cent and then if an opportunity arises, go for it.”
The Netherlands’ Anne van Dam matched the lowest round of the day with a 63 to be the leading woman at 12 under, a shot clear of English pair Matthew Jordan and Gabriella Cowley, with the latter making three eagles in her 64.
Justin Rose recalls ‘magical’ US Open triumph 10 years on
A decade may have passed since Justin Rose won the US Open, but unsurprisingly memories of his momentous achievement at Merion quickly come flooding back.
“It turned into a magical week and there were so many factors in play,” Rose told the PA news agency in an exclusive interview.
“It was one of the first majors that I really identified as a huge opportunity and I really went out of my way to prepare for, really did things a little bit differently that week.
“There was some great preparation mixed in with kind of a mystical side of it being Father’s Day, me feeling like my dad was watching down and being very much a motivating factor for me that week.”
Yet it was a week which could easily have turned out so differently.
The preparation Rose alluded to was three full days spent at Merion the week before the championship, only for the conditions to change significantly following a downpour caused by the remnants of tropical storm Andrea.
With torrential rain continuing to fall on the East Course, plans were even put in place to use two holes on the West Course, while Ian Poulter offered an illuminating response when asked whose game would be suited to the test.
“Someone who can use flippers and snorkel the best,” Poulter replied.
“That was fortuitous that the bad weather came in and I wasn’t around for it, but in some ways it made me doubt my preparation because I’d seen Merion in a certain way,” Rose recalled.
“The course was playing fantastically and it was a US Open so you build your game plan in a way to think, ‘How can I get round this course without making mistakes and shoot even par?’
“Then all the rain came down and softened up the course and all the Golf Channel pundits are saying it was going to be a bloodbath, birdies everywhere and double digits under par was going to win.
“I was like, ‘Oh well, that was a bit of a waste of time then,’ but it was too late to change my game plan so I stuck with it and, lo and behold, one over par won the golf tournament.”
That winning total belonged to Rose following a dramatic final round played out alongside Luke Donald, the English duo starting the day two shots behind Phil Mickelson, who was celebrating his 43rd birthday.
Mickelson double-bogeyed the third and fifth to limp to the turn in 39 before holing out for an eagle on the short par-four 10th, only for Rose to immediately respond with birdies on the 12th and 13th to reclaim the lead.
Two bogeys in three holes from both players left Rose one ahead on the 18th tee, from where he hit a perfect drive to within a few yards of the plaque which commemorates Ben Hogan’s one-iron to the 72nd hole of the 1950 US Open, which helped get the American into a play-off the following day which he went on to win.
“I hit probably the best shot of my life at the right time which ultimately ended up missing the green, which shows you how hard that shot is in there,” Rose laughed.
“I left myself in the perfect spot really to make an easy four which I hoped was going to be good enough.”
After tapping in for par, Rose raised his fingers to the sky in tribute to his father Ken, a massive influence on his career who died from leukaemia in 2002.
“Being a father myself by that point in my life, it was very special,” he said.
“My coach at the time, Sean Foley, sent me a really great message the morning of the final round making it clear what a good day would look like.
“It wasn’t necessarily based upon the result, it was more about going out there and carrying myself in a way that would make not just my dad proud, but my kids, being a role model for them and showing them how to carry yourself in pressure situations.
“Obviously I had to wait for the final groups to finish, so there was some nail biting going on because I felt like I had done enough and you can almost taste victory at that point.
“I would have hoped it would have been the catalyst to go on and win some more majors, but that obviously isn’t the case yet.
“Having that monkey off the back was a huge relief at that point in my career. It came before there were any questions on being the best player not to have won a major – it was nice to take care of business and I hoped the freedom of that would have kicked me on to win more.
“I’ve had a few opportunities and that’s where majors are hard to win because yes, you have to play great golf, but you also need that little moment of brilliance or luck right at the end that gets the job done.”
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