Rose now has cut of a winner

GOLF/European Open Countdown: These days, Justin Rose walks, talks and thinks like a winner. The days when he couldn't make a cut for love nor money have been cast to the dim and distant past, and the Englishman - seventh on the Volvo Order of Merit and 33rd in the world rankings - has been transformed.

He's moved on, from being the inconsistent player of his early professional career into arguably the most consistent golfer on the European Tour.

The statistics don't lie. When he turned professional, Rose - only 17 years old going on 18 - missed 21 straight cuts, and endured enough torment to last a lifetime.

Last season, once he discovered the secret to winning, he couldn't stop: he won four times around the world, twice in South Africa, once in Japan and once in England.

This season, Rose hasn't won - yet! - but he hasn't missed a cut and has five top-10 finishes and three top-five finishes, including one at the US Open, in his resume.

"I'm playing well in the bigger tournaments, which is where I want to see myself going - I've started to compete to win the really big tournaments," he insisted.

On his return to competitive action in last week's French Open at Versailles after his final day fling in Chicago, he simply continued knocking on the door, securing a tied-third place finish.

No wonder there was a spring in his step as he arrived on the practice range at The K Club yesterday, even if the course - which plays host to the Smurfit European Open, starting tomorrow - is not one that has been too kind to him in the past.

In fact, The K Club has been a torment to him on his previous visits. Last year, he shot a second round 81 to miss the cut by a country mile and the previous year, he had rounds of 78 and 74 to also miss the cut with something to spare.

In 2000, he was forced to hole back-to-back 40 footers for birdies on his last two holes to survive on the cut mark.

Nope, the North Course has not been Rose's favourite hunting ground.

Why it should be so is a mystery to the player. "I've been average to poor playing here, but I don't know why I haven't done well," said Rose. "I've played on courses similar to this and played very well. It's a very Americanised course and the weather, when it's windy, makes it a testing combination. It becomes really challenging.

"But from the time you come in here, it feels like a really big tournament and it is one of the highlights of the schedule."

So, Rose is inclined to discount his past efforts here and, instead, focus on the positive - he believes he can win.

"Nowadays, I turn up at a golf tournament believing I can win and planning to win. It's a massive difference to just turning up and seeing what happens, as was the case earlier in my career," he explained.

The change in fortune for Rose came in the second part of the 2000 season when he made eight cuts in his last 11 tournaments. He still had to go back to the tour's qualifying school, but he regained his card and, quite simply, hasn't looked back since.

In the early part of the 2001 season, he had two runners-up finishes in South Africa - "I did everything well enough to win and things didn't go my way . . . but, from that experience, I knew I had the game to win," he said.

And so it was that once he discovered how to win, in the Dunhill championship last year, he moved on to another level.

The quest to be better goes on, and he has worked with David Leadbetter for the past five years.

"I still think my game needs a lot of improvement, a lot of work," he said, "but the difference is I feel like I don't have to play my best to get myself up onto the leaderboard.

"You need to play well to win golf tournaments, but my game has got to a level now where I can get by when just playing okay. To improve as a player, I believe every avenue can still be explored and worked on. I can practice harder.

"My driving is probably the area of my game that's improved the most, (while) my putting is possibly a little streaky but generally is very good.

"Iron play last year was a strength of mine but this year it hasn't been so good and that's an area where you make a lot of birdies from, where you give yourself a lot of chances from the fairway.

"So that's probably the area immediately where I need to do a bit of work."

In his past five outings, Rose has finished in the top-five on three occasions; and that is probably the more relevant statistic than the one which shows that he has missed the cut here for the past two years.

These days, he believes he can win every time he stands on the first tee.

And, in golf, self-belief is a wonderful thing.

WORLD RANKINGS - 1 Tiger Woods (USA) 15.14pts ave, 2 Ernie Els (Rsa) 9.24, 3 Mike Weir (Can) 7.90, 4 Davis Love-III (USA) 7.51, 5 Vijay Singh (Fij) 7.42, 6 Jim Furyk (USA) 7.35, 7 David Toms (USA) 7.04, 8 Padraig Harrington Ire 6.40, 9 Phil Mickelson (USA) 6.34, 10 Nick Price (Zim) 5.70, 11 Kenny Perry (USA) 5.68, 12 Retief Goosen (Rsa) 5.44, 13 Justin Leonard (USA) 4.48, 14 Chris DiMarco (USA) 4.14, 15 Sergio Garcia (Spa) 3.89, 16 Bob Estes (USA) 3.60, 17 Robert Allenby (Aus) 3.52, 18 Jerry Kelly (USA) 3.29, 19 Scott Verplank (USA) 3.29, 20 Scott Hoch (USA) 3.28.