Justin Rose: Forget about tweeting, I just want birdies

Everyone is talking about Twitter and tweeting. Until Ian Poulter started doing it I hadn't paid any attention to Twitter. I had heard people talking about it but I didn't know how it worked. It's fun but it's not for me. I have a hard enough time keeping on top of my text and e-mail messages as it is.
I flew up here [to New York for the US Open] on Monday morning with Poults. He loves gadgets and all the craziness that goes with them. He is very different to me. For me, tweeting is another thing to add to what is already rather a crazy lifestyle.
One of my biggest problems is I find it hard to have downtime. Kate, my wife, is a big believer in that when it is family time the phone should be off. I need to get away from things, to shut off the outside world.
I played nine holes with Poults and Ross Fisher on Monday. It took quite a while - three hours and ten minutes! I liked the course on my first sight of it. I thought it was not overly tricked-up for a US Open course. It was very playable and very fair. But it sure was long with all the rain they have had.
The mistake I made at last year's US Open at Torrey Pines, San Diego, where I failed to make the cut, was that I focused too much on my long game. I was playing well but lacking in the short-game department. The reality is that the guys who are playing well still miss greens, still hit bad shots.
I was disappointed to have to pull out of the BMW PGA at Wentworth last month because my back flared up. But I recovered quickly. Antoni Jakubowski, my chiropractor, helped me to get back on the straight and narrow. I have also started working with a new fitness trainer, Justin Buckthorp. I am really excited about what I have been doing with him. Right now I feel as fit as I have felt for a long, long time.
The weather was fantastic when we were at home in England last month. From a lifestyle perspective it was great to go and have a coffee on the river in London, to hang out and catch up with my friends. It wasn't a wasted trip, even though I didn't play Wentworth. I went out and played a round at Worplesdon, at the New Zealand. The plan was to go round Surrey and play the hidden gems I hadn't really played before. New Zealand is an old school golf course and club. It is great. It is 5,800 yards and I don't think I broke par.
One day Kate and I strolled around London and found ourselves near Downing Street. It was the time of the MPs' expenses row. The media were camped out there. I don't know enough about the issue but the whole thing stinks. You could smell a rat and it is not nice when there are so many families in the country struggling and there are people claiming for helipads.
God knows what happened to me at the Memorial Tournament at the start of the month, where I missed the cut. I hit the same amount of greens as Luke Donald in the first round. He shot 64 and I shot 80. OK he was hitting the ball closer to the flagstick than I was, but you know ...
I have not been scoring well. I have got to be really patient now. It is a game of patience. If you get advice from Gary Player and Eduardo Romero, all the guys who have been round the block and who still view me as a young man, they say: “Be patient, it is going to happen. You have time on your side.”
This is going to be an emotional US Open because of Amy Mickelson, the wife of Phil who was found to have breast cancer last month. Amy is the kind of person who gets two weeks' work done in a day, a mother of three who takes the kids here, there and everywhere, e-mails, stays on top of things and is really bright.
You look at her and you think: “a beautiful, vibrant young woman who appears to have everything in the world.” It shows you how fickle life is and the fact that you're a pro golfer does not mean you are immune to any of that sort of stuff.
Source:The times