Monty Wants To Reach Out To Scottish Youth And Show Them How A Professional Acts

Douglas Lowe finds Monty in a chatty mood as he ponders out loud why the youth of today--namely young Scottish amateurs Callum Macaulay and John Gallagher--have not come to him for advice.

"They need help," said Scotland's top world-ranked player, who has more than two decades of experience as a tournament professional on which to draw. "There is a big, big difference between what they are doing in amateur golf and the professional game.

"Very few make that transition easily. It is a tough one. If it was easy we would all be doing it," said Montgomerie, who was never a shrinking violet when it came to picking other players' brains.

"I was wise in many ways. I was asking questions of players who were better than me and I am surprised that more people have not asked me about the transition and how it was done, what happened and how you felt.

"There are a lot of golfers who hit the ball better than I do but can't get the ball round the golf course. There is a lot more to it than hitting the golf ball straight a long way and I hope they realise beforehand I am going to be there and can think about the questions they are going to ask me."

About diet, about marriage, washing your own car, about playing in front of large crowds. Just think of what they can learn!

"I have played in the Walker Cup and Eisenhower Trophy so I know how they are. It's the same in your own family; your own kids don't see you as children but they forget I was their age once and I know exactly what they are thinking," he said, adding with a laugh: "I just didn't like rap music."

Your own children don't see you as a child, Monty? They obvious haven't watched you interract with a gallery!

Monty: Will You Still Rank Me When I'm 52?

Lewine Mair talks to the great Scot on the U.S. Open eve and he offers an unprecedented admission. Sort of. First...

"I feel as if I'm still a top-25 player," protested this competitive soul. "The only thing is that the rankings don't lie."

Here's the kinda mea culpa. Here's the background from Alistair Tait if you don't recall his brilliant decision to fire his caddy and go with a local last year.

Ideally, Montgomerie wants to get cracking now. Only two years ago he came within a whisker of winning the US Open. Last year, on the other hand, was a write-off, not least because of relations between him and his local caddie, 'Oakmont Bill'.

The two all but came to blows at the long fourth on their second and last day. Bill asked the Scot if he planned to go for the green or if he was going to lay up. "I'm going to go for it," Montgomerie said. He tried and failed - and then he rounded on the caddie for putting negative ideas in his head.

Montgomerie was also at odds with his putter, with as many as nine stone-cold implements tumbling from his locker when he was leaving for home.

"The local caddie was a bad idea and changing putters was a worse one," he admits. "In the case of the putter, I'm afraid nothing was more applicable than that old saying about the bad workman - it wasn't the putter, it was the puttee. I've still got to force myself to follow through, to accelerate more through the ball."

Montgomerie is always looking for positives and a couple have just landed in his lap. Miguel Angel Jimenez, who won at Wentworth, is the same age as he is, while American Kenny Perry, who won the Memorial Tournament last week, is older.

He will be 45 this month but, as he points out, he is exempt on the European Tour for the next seven years.

"And do you know what?" he volunteers. "I'll still be telling you than that I should be in the world's top 25 when I'm 52."

Never shy in the self-important department!

"Wipe the smile off your face for a start, there is nothing funny"

Tony Jimenez reports that Monty is taking his missed cut in stride.

Eight times European number one Colin Montgomerie was in a prickly mood on Friday after missing the cut at the PGA Championship for the first time in 19 years.

"Wipe the smile off your face for a start, there is nothing funny," the 44-year-old Briton told a reporter after a three-over-par 75 gave him a four-over total of 148.

Gee, I wonder who was smiling!?

Montgomerie, who won the European Tour's flagship event in 1998, 1999 and 2000, was level-par for the front nine before slumping to a three-over 40 coming home that included two sixes.

The out-of-form Scot has tumbled to 90th in the world but Europe's Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo said on Tuesday he thought the team's emotional figurehead was still capable of rallying to qualify for the September 19-21 match against the United States.

Asked on Friday if he was encouraged by Faldo's remarks, Montgomerie replied: "That's the furthest thing from my mind.

"I just didn't play well enough. It's one of those things, you get what you deserve in this game.

"End of story. I was not encouraged by anything today."

Monty Wants Crackdown On Slow Play

From an unbylined golf365.com story:

"Five hours is an hour too long. There's no reason why we can't get round any course anywhere in the world in any conditions in four.

"The deterrents have got to be tougher - that works in any walk of life. If there is a serious one it's amazing how quick it could be.

"I think we are all working together on it and it's a matter of trying to get it all together and try to make it fair for everybody."

It was only two weeks that Montgomerie was on the same subject and he commented then: "I'm a quick player and there's no doubt that the slow play of others has hurt me over the years."

"The American press obediently reported it like he was having a routine operation."

For a good chuckle read Derek Lawrenson's doting account of Monty's wedding. A teaser:

For all the unrivalled splendour of the setting — whoever heard of two unbroken days of sunshine on the bonnie banks in April, for Heaven's sake? — and the lavish financial outlay, the most memorable thing about the day was the unforced happiness.

What really makes it fun though is the item a few slots below it on Tiger's knee:

So, what do we make of the fact that a supreme athlete like Tiger Woods requires six weeks to get over arthroscopic knee surgery?

The American press obediently reported it like he was having a routine operation. But if footballers are back playing a fortnight after having cartilages repaired through arthroscopic surgery, how standard can the procedure be when Woods needs three times that length of recuperation before he can play golf?

Obediently reported?

Well, based on that account of Monty's wedding, he would know about that kind of reporting.

Monty Gets Through Vows Without Backing Off Due To Camera Shutter Noise

The Telegraph's Andrew Alderson shares more details than you ever wanted to know about the big wedding day. And brace yourself, the lede is a heartstring puller.

After conceding that his obsession with golf helped to end his first marriage, Colin Montgomerie might have been expected to turn his back on the sport when he tied the knot a second time yesterday. Not a bit of it.

I tell you, what he has had to overcome!

Professional golfers invited included the Open champion Padraig Harrington, Sam Torrance and his Ryder Cup colleagues Lee Westwood and Paul Casey.

No mention of the golf writers invited? Curiously, none filed stories...

The details of the wedding and golfing activities were shrouded in secrecy, with an 800-acre, five-day "exclusion zone" around the course.

However, Prince Andrew was unable to attend - he was at the christening of his nephew, the Earl and Countess of Wessex's son, Viscount Severn, at Windsor yesterday afternoon.

Ah, the perks of royalty. 

Monty Wedding Photo Caption Fun

The happy couple...what are they thinking?

 

"He does, though, feel he makes an important contribution around the world in promoting golf."

Norman Dabell quotes Monty's agent, who tries to soften the blow of Monday's remarks about Augusta National's exemption policy.

"Colin completely understands Augusta's right to promote themselves," his manager Guy Kinnings told Reuters. "The last thing he would want to do is show disrespect or tell them who they should or should not invite."

Well I don't know if that's the last thing he would want, but...

"He's done everything he can to be there, including changing his schedule, and he's just very disappointed because he values the tournament so highly. He does, though, feel he makes an important contribution around the world in promoting golf."

Ah yes, we know how highly he thinks of himself, but thanks for the reminder. 

"It is a strange way to make up a field for a Major championship – television rights."

Mount Monty blows! The old bird couldn't even wait until the end of the week.

James Corrigan has the tantrum:

The Scot will miss Augusta for only the second time in 17 years after slipping down to No 75 in the world rankings when he needed to be in the top 50 before yesterday's qualification cut-off point. But while lower ranked players from China, Thailand and India have received special invitations to play the first major of the season, the 44-year-old said he will be at home "washing his car". And he revealed that that is because the Asian countries have huge television markets.

See, it's not an April Fool's Day joke. The giveaway: Monty can't wait to wash his car. Brilliant he says.

Oh here's the part that will ensure he's never invited to the Masters: 

"There has been no call from Augusta and I am not expecting one," he said in Munich at a promotional event for June's BMW International Open. "Now, if I were the only person in the country, à la China, I might get in. It is a strange way to make up a field for a Major championship – television rights. They are quite open about why. They were when I missed out last time in 2005 when they picked Shingo Katayama who was 67th in the world and I was 51st. They picked him over me for the Japanese rights. And they have done the same with Thailand and China this time.

"I am not the only one who feels that way and not just because I am not in. In or not I'd be saying the same thing. It is a strange criterion to pick a major field.

"The Masters is the only one you can get invited to. At the Open, the US Open and the USPGA you have to qualify. But the Masters have their own rules so we will leave them to it. It would be easier to swallow if no one was invited and it was done on sporting and not commercial criteria."

And in lieu of a April Fool's Day prank, I give you Mike Aitken's exclusive one-on-one with Monty about the state of his personal life, published in January. It just feels like an April Fool's prank when he writes that Monty was one of Great Britain's most eligible bachelors and that he said his fingers were cut up from moving boxes. But wait, there's the line about the car washing.

Ah just hit the link, sit back and giggle.

Update on 2008-04-01 15:01 by Geoff

Scott Michaux fires back at Monty on the Augusta Chronicle blog.

Monty Missing Masters; Can Spend More Time Putting Finishing Touches On Pre-Nup

Lawrence Donegan notes that the world's No. 75 player will now have more time to prepare for this April 17th wedding.

"It does not look very good if the captain [Nick Faldo] is qualified to play in the Masters and you're not"

Kind of an odd statement from Monty, whose hope of playing in the Masters is fading...

"I don't want to miss out on the Masters because this is a Ryder Cup year and, if you don't play, you lose out on all the precious points available at Augusta," he said. "If you're not there, you're on the back foot. And it does not look very good if the captain [Nick Faldo] is qualified to play in the Masters and you're not, now does it?

"And Monty’s chums in the media have, it must be said, been doing their level best for their man."

Golfobserver's John Huggan catches up on the state of Monty. Buried deep was this...

Elsewhere, Monty’s propensity for self-promotion has seen him looking further into the future, first to this year’s European Ryder cup side and then to 2014 when the biennial contest with the Americans will make only its second ever visit to Scotland, at Gleneagles. Monty, not surprisingly, has been talking himself up as a possible wild-card pick for later this year – given his current form, he is unlikely to qualify directly - and then non-playing captain for 2014, when the event will take place just down the road from his soon-to-be marital home in leafy Perthshire.

On the face of it, that second scenario would seem to represent a perfect fit: In Scotland, with a proud nation’s finest-ever Ryder Cup player leading the European hordes into battle. And Monty’s chums in the media have, it must be said, been doing their level best for their man. Over the last few months, a procession of pro-Monty pieces has appeared in friendly publications (not coincidentally, at least two golf correspondents, both with right-wing English newspapers, have been invited to the upcoming Monty nuptials) openly and rather blatantly promoting just such an eventuality.

Significantly, few if any of those glowing articles have included quotes from Monty’s fast-depleting band of chums on the European Tour. Yet again, the spectre of Indonesia - and that dodgy replacement of his ball in a spot barely reminiscent of where he should have played from - hangs over the Scot’s rapidly greying head of hair. Call him ‘Colin No-mates.’

They don't forgive or forget. 

"Golf, especially with the chronic amount of time it takes to play a round these days, can be pretty boring most of the time, which is why it needs characters as well as just good players."

It's Martin Johnson writing on golf, need I say more?  Just in case The Telegraph web site disappears some day:

They clamoured around Paul Casey after the Englishman won his second-round match, not to ask Casey anything much about himself, but about Colin Montgomerie. "Tell us Paul, just what is it with Monty?" referring to a character who convinces many of us that global warming can be traced back to Scotland's only active volcano.

American golfers, in general, have the ability to put you into a hypnotic trance as they drone on about their sand saves, or how they're hitting it "real solid", but when Monty is heading for the interview tent people get knocked over in the rush. He knows it, too, and when they were still pouring in to hear his pre-tournament thoughts before last year's Open at Carnoustie, the great man beamed with delight. "Come on," said Monty. "Come along. There's still a bit of room at the back." For many of us, the thrill of attending a golf tournament is not to watch Woods thumping a drive 350 yards, or firing a three-iron to six inches, but being able to say "I was there" when a photographer triggers his lens on the top of Monty's backswing, or a spectator jangles his change on his putting stroke.

Golf, especially with the chronic amount of time it takes to play a round these days, can be pretty boring most of the time, which is why it needs characters as well as just good players. So fingers crossed for Monty qualifying for next month's US Masters. If Woods will not be quaking at seeing Monty's name on the starting sheet, the Augusta National head greenkeeper certainly will be. One bad round and he could see his entire azalea collection reduced to a smouldering heap of garden compost.

"He better come on home with me, then. We've got a lot of changing to do."

Thanks to reader Steve for suggesting I read Boo Weekley's interview transcript from Kapalua (I know, I know...how could I ever pass up the chance?).

The bullets exchange was fun, but this is a nice one for the Monty files:

Q. You played good in China, though, I heard.
BOO WEEKLEY: Yeah, we played good in China. We fed off each other, me and Heath. That was a plus. That was a great time over there. I mean, it was great to be able to go over and represent your country. We didn't know -- I knew how he was going to play but I didn't know how I was going to play. I knew he was going to play good because he's been playing and practicing and I had been up in a woods hunting.

Q. Up in a tree killing something is what Monty said, your new best friend?
BOO WEEKLEY: Yeah, I heard he kind of liked me.

Q. He did. He wants to be like you.
BOO WEEKLEY: (Laughing) he better come on home with me, then (laughter). We've got a lot of changing to do (laughter).

Monty Gets Good Night's Rest, Bamboozles Pen Pushers Into Believing He Is A Merry Old Chap

I was stunned to enter Sherwood's cart barn today to find a jovial group of writers parsing the Colin Montgomerie transcript, only to hear things like "he really can be nice if he wants" and "he's not the fat shlub I thought he would be" and "how's that mysterious looking shredded chicken?"

Apparently Monty put on quite the show for his 9:15 press conference, which is about three hours before any sane individual would arrive to listen to any tour player but Tiger. However, there are those with early deadlines so the turnout was lovely. You can read the lovefest here, or get the overview from Mark Lamport-Stokes.

Or I can put it more succinctly: Monty and Captain Faldo have figured out a way to give the impression that they get along.

Lamport-Stokes:

"I've spoken to Nick and it's fine," Montgomerie told a news conference on Wednesday during preparation for this week's Target World Challenge. "It doesn't concern me."

After being criticised by Faldo for an apparent lack of team spirit at the Seve Trophy in September, Montgomerie countered by saying such comments should have been directed to him personally instead of through the media.

With that hatchet now seemingly buried, Montgomerie believes it is paramount for Europe to maintain the team unity that has helped them win the Ryder Cup five times in the last six years.

"Let's hope the ambiance of our European team remains as it has done throughout that time, meaning that we go in there relaxed, we go in there as a team," he said of next year's contest in Louisville, Kentucky.

Ah that's the team spirit!