Justin Rose must be wondering what is going to happen to him next as he starts the Barclays Classic at Westchester in New York tomorrow.

On Friday, Rose and playing partner Ryan Moore were disqualified from the Memorial tournament for leaving the course before play had been officially suspended for the night.

On Saturday they were re-instated because it was an official scorer who had told them they could stop. On Sunday he climbed all the way to 14th place.

Then on Monday he thought he had failed to survive a qualifying tournament for the US Open in Columbus, caught a flight to New York and then discovered he would have been in a play-off if he had stayed.

"It's been a bizarre couple of days. Talk about two learning curves," Rose told reporters as he practised for this week's event.

Referring to Monday's blunder, he added: "I made a decision based on all the information I had. I'm very surprised that four-under was the number - I honestly figured that it would be six. I bogeyed 18 as well, so that really makes me sick."

There is no way into the US Open for the 25-year-old now, which means he will have gone six majors without appearing in any of them - and that after being the halfway leader in the Masters two years ago.

Last season Rose was a reserve for both the Open and US PGA championships and waited around the first tee each time in case of any late withdrawals, but then had to return home without hitting a shot.

With over half a million dollars already this year he is 79th on the US PGA Tour money list, but at 98th in the world is not where he wants to be - or, indeed, where he once was.

At least his form at the weekend was a big boost to his confidence and he will need that now as he takes on 10 of the world's top 12 players.

Rose partners one of them in the first round - fellow Englishman David Howell, whose climb through the rankings has coincided with his own slide. Howell is the world number 10 and leader of both the European Tour's Order of Merit and Ryder Cup table. And he is, of course, competing in the US Open at Winged Foot next week.

So too are Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington, and for the final warm-up they return now to one of their happiest hunting grounds.

Garcia won in 2001 and 2004, on that second occasion beating Harrington and Rory Sabbatini in a play-off.

But Harrington went one better on his return last June, sinking an amazing 66-foot eagle putt on the final green to pip Jim Furyk to the title.

The two players missing from the world's top 12 are Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.

Woods will go into the second major of the year not having played since the Masters more than two months ago - his father died in between, of course - while Els made a late decision to take this week off to regroup after finishing the
Memorial tournament with an 81.

Ian Poulter and Graeme McDowell, both of whom qualified for the US Open in impressive fashion on Monday, also play, as do Lee Westwood and Luke Donald.

Westwood has missed five halfway cuts in a row - three in America, two in Europe - and pulled out of both the Memorial event and US Open qualifying.