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Major glory on Justin Rose's mind

Justin Rose is in hot form at present following his win at the AT&T National © Getty Images

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Justin Rose will head to the Open at St Andrews on a high following his second PGA Tour win inside a month at the AT&T National and the Brit feels the natural progression in his career is to secure major glory.

Rose took 162 times before breaking his PGA Tour duck at the Memorial Tournament at the start of June and followed up less than a month later with a one-shot win from Ryan Moore.

The victory guaranteed Rose a place at the Open and he is looking forward to heading to St Andrews, having narrowly missed out on a spot in the field the last time the event was held on the Old Course.

Victory at Aronimink catapulted Rose into the world's top 16 and he feels primed to make a bold challenge at St Andrews.

"I think winning on the PGA Tour is a steppingstone to winning major championships," he said. "I mean, there doesn't get a much bigger arena than this unless it's a major championship. You know, this prepares you. This is great practice. The emotions you're facing even the crowd out there for the most part was a really great, energy, vibe crowd.

"But I've always felt that a major could come along as my first win. I've always believed that. But this is the progression that I would have expected. I established myself in Europe and then it took me a while over here, but to then establish myself by winning PGA Tour events to then going to the next level, which would obviously be major championships."

Rose will play in a charity event in Ireland this week prior to heading to Scotland for some practice on the Old Course.

"I won the St Andrews Links Trophy as an amateur there, which that was probably the performance that got me into the Walker Cup. It's one of the biggest stroke play events we have on the amateur circuit. So winning that, I think I was 16, got me into the Walker Cup. And I finished 2nd at the Dunhill Links Championship in '07 then.

"It's a place I love. How can you not love St Andrews? You've just got to stand on the 1st tee there and you feel like you're part of something special. To do it in an Open is something very special. That's been my goal for the last few weeks.

"I'm going to go Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to St Andrews and then spend the weekend back in London and probably head up Monday night. So I'm going to do my practice and preparation while it's nice and quiet there and then come up Tuesday and Wednesday and maybe play nine holes, nine holes, something like that."

Tiger Woods has held on to the world No. 1 spot for the 265 consecutive week, while Rory McIlroy has moved up one place to nine and Open de France winner Miguel Angel Jimenez is up to 32 in the world.

World Rankings: 1. Tiger Woods (USA), 2. Phil Mickelson (USA), 3. Lee Westwood (Eng), 4. Steve Stricker (USA), 5. Jim Furyk (USA), 6. Ernie Els (RSA), 7. Luke Donald (Eng), 8. Ian Poulter (Eng), 9. Rory McIlroy (NI), 10. Paul Casey (Eng), 11. Anthony Kim (USA), 12. Martin Kaymer (Gr), 13. Graeme McDowell (NI), 14. Robert Allenby (Aus), 15. Padraig Harrington (Ire), 16. Justin Rose (Eng), 17. Camilo Villegas (Col), 18. Retief Goosen (RSA), 19. Zach Johnson (USA), 20. Tim Clark (RSA)

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