Rose tells injured McIlroy to keep having fun

By Bernie McGuire GULLANE, Scotland (Reuters) - Justin Rose has told injured Rory McIlroy not to change his off-course lifestyle despite the world number one suffering an ankle injury playing football that could rule him out of next week's British Open. McIlroy has withdrawn from this week's Scottish Open at Gullane, while it remains uncertain whether he will be able to defend his British Open title at St Andrews. Rose revealed he has taken up deep sea diving near his Bahamas residence and advised McIlroy not to change his own off-course activities once he has recovered after rupturing ligaments last weekend playing a social game of football. “Rory has to keep doing what he's been doing all his life,” Rose told reporters on Tuesday. “I know Rory pretty well and I know he's a guy who likes to live his life. He likes to have fun. He likes to get his mind away from golf. He’s the kind of guy that if he practiced 24/7 and got too much in his own head it's not going to help him. “But then hindsight is a wonderful thing and Rory probably would not want go playing football again in the middle of a season and certainly not before a major.” World number seven Rose was in the Royal Box at Wimbledon last Saturday and admitted he admired Briton Andy Murray’s mental strength and Swiss Roger Federer’s calmness and will look to take those characteristics into this week's Scottish tournament. “The one thing I took away from Wimbledon was the shift in momentum as you just have got to sort of ride out the storm sometimes,” he said. “The other interesting thing is sometimes you can lose your momentum for 30, 40 minutes in a game of tennis and the result doesn't necessarily matter. Whereas in golf, that results in double bogeys." (Editing by Toby Davis)