Monty Says No To Wales Open Pavin Pairing!

Derek Lawrenson hid this little nugget at the end of his European Open story:

You can imagine the temptation to pair them together for the first two rounds, 18 months before their teams duel over the same course in the Ryder Cup itself.

Except that Monty, who endured another miserable day here with a final round 75, has requested it does not happen.

Clearly, he would be under more pressure to perform and can visualise the bold type in the papers the next morning if he has one of his grumpy days and Pavin shoots 69.

As one colleague wryly put it: ‘A disappointingly shrewd move on his part.’

Captain Monty Open To Having Lunch With People He Never Would Have Dined With Before

Mike Aitken reports on just how desperate European Captain Colin Montgomerie is to win.

"I feel in the past that there has been only a select few told things on a need-to-know basis but I want this to be an open campaign," he explained. "I will do it through e-mails to the players and talk to them in players' lounges. At lunch, maybe I'll sit at tables I wouldn't otherwise have sat at and say 'listen lads, this is what's happening'.

Lunching with the little people he never would have wasted his time with.  Now that is determination!

Monty Off To Blazing Start: Already Has Vice Captain Ollie Flustered!

Derek Lawrenson reports that the Vice Captain has never actually been offered the job!

He has certainly got a grumpy potential vice-captain on his hands after Jose Maria Olazabal made the stunning revelation on Thursday that Monty had appointed him to the post without even asking the Spaniard if he wanted it.

Anyone know the Spanish for ‘That’s news to me, pal?’

Such was Ollie’s reaction to a series of questions on the subject at the Dubai Desert Classic, where he was in no mood to gloss over what he clearly feels is a terrible breach of protocol.

‘The only words Monty and I have spoken was when I got to the clubhouse on Wednesday and I congratulated him and he said: “We need to talk,” and that was all,’ said Olazabal.

You assume it is the vice-captaincy he wants to talk about?

‘I am not going to guess anything.’

Monty Does Everything But Call Faldo A Blundering Idiot

As quoted by Bernie Mcguire...

The Scot said: "I wasn't in Valhalla but my optimum number is more than last time.

"I will have Olly there with me and other suitable candidates. I have a great understanding and respect for Olly.

"I will have plenty of backroom staff. I think it's very important you have enough help out there.

There's an awful lot going on and I cannot be in two places at once.

"But my goal is to try to gain 14 and a half points."

Monty also revealed his shame for last September's team.

And he insists the disappointment on the faces of the losing players is something he is determined not to see again.

He said: "I watched on TV what was going on. Knowing the players as I did, especially the Harrington and Westwood situation at the end of the matches, I felt ashamed for them to be left at the end there.

"They should have been involved at an earlier stage but I saw enough of what was going on.

"I didn't see the practice days which is important to a team unit. I only saw the match days and when you are so far behind after the first day it's a large hurdle to climb.

"From that very first day it was difficult to see smiles on anyone's faces and I would expect that.

"That was a first-day defeat we hadn't seen for some time. We just need that early momentum as it is very difficult nowadays to pull anything back in a Ryder Cup."

Monty Already Greatest Captain In History Of Ryder Cup **

The British Press is doing what it does best...building him up before they inevitably slap him around. Enjoy it Monty, because you know this won't last.

Mike Aitken in The Scotsman:

But Monty's credentials as one of Europe's greatest Ryder Cup players, along with an intimate knowledge of the men he will lead at Celtic Manor, swung the decision in his favour. Following in the footsteps of compatriots George Duncan, Johnny Fallon, Eric Brown, Bernard Gallacher and Sam Torrance, Montgomerie, who lives in Perthshire, had hoped to be honoured with the captaincy at Gleneagles in 2014.

Mark Reason in the Telegraph:

Many in the game believe that Montgomerie will be just as good a Ryder Cup leader as he has been a player. Peter McEvoy, arguably British golf's greatest captain yet, played with him as an amateur at Walker Cups and Eisenhower Trophys in the Eighties and believes that the Scot has everything it takes.

He said: "His enthusiasm and box office appeal will be very good for the Ryder Cup commercially. Monty will never be out of the newspapers. He loves it. But he's also got a really strong winning instinct.

"People always say that Monty should have won a major, but lacked the killer instinct. I think they've got it the wrong way round. I think he has been held back by a one-dimensional game, but has a hugely winning attitude that he will bring to the Ryder Cup captaincy. He will do what it takes. I can't see a negative."

Nope, me neither.

William Johnson reports that Monty has at least one assistant who will put up with him help him stay in touch with today's players.

Indeed, Montgomerie was so impressed by reports of how influential Olazabal had been in Valhalla last September that he has already offered the Spaniard an assistant's role next year. Olazabal has accepted.

Lawrence Donegan is the only one who sounds cautiously optimistic:

Watching Montgomerie handle his newly acquired status as the most popular man on tour, as well as the dynamics of his personal relations with other players – the good, the bad and ugly – will be one of the more fascinating parlour games of the next 18 months...

Update on 2009-01-29 16:34 by Geoff

**More of the lovefest. Derek Lawrenson in the Daily Mail:

Few will say the committee got it wrong. Here were 15 good men who weighed one alleged indiscretion - when Monty was accused of moving a ball to a more advantageous position after a weather break during a tournament in Indonesia - against the welter of evidence of Monty's good deeds and rightly decided it was time to forgive and move on.

John Hopkins, who also thought Nick Faldo was doing a great job (for a while), in the Times:

Colin Montgomerie will be a good captain of the Europe team at Celtic Manor and he might even be a very good one. He will know the players better than some of his predecessors because he will have been playing alongside them in the days and weeks leading up to the event. This obviously did not apply to Nick Faldo at Valhalla last September.

"One can only imagine what his thoughts were when the news came through yesterday of Olazábal's latest change of heart." **

Lawrence Donegan analyzes the dynamics of Jose Maria Olazábal's apparent interest in the 2010 Ryder Cup captaincy.

Montgomerie has not been offered the job – certainly not formally – but he has clearly been given the impression that next week's meeting in Dubai of the European Tour's tournament players' committee, where a final decision on the captaincy is due to be made, was a forgone conclusion. It may have been, but not any more. Such is Olazábal's stature within the game, and such is the respect with which he is held by his peers, that his newly-announced availability demands to be taken seriously.

Alas poor Monty, who now finds himself reduced from a red-hot certainty to a lukewarm favourite on the whim of a contemporary who has consistently bested him as they have progressed through their careers. One can only imagine what his thoughts were when the news came through yesterday of Olazábal's latest change of heart.

And here's the real crux of the matter for Monty, whose comments to Mark Reason last week could come back to haunt him should he decide to refute the notion that he'll be too old at 51 in 2014:

Olazábal has been far less decisive, or at least he was until Gómez's statement yesterday. There is also apparent agreement of the tournament players' committee that henceforth only players who are competing regularly on the tour will be offered the captaincy. In that case, 2010 represents the Scot's last chance. He may still be on tour in 2012, when the event will be held in Chicago, but his history in the United States, where he has long been the target of the "Hey Monty, eat a salad" brigade, rules him out, surely. Under the new policy, he will be too old by the time Gleneagles comes around in 2014.

Update on 2009-01-24 01:39 by Geoff

** Monty, after his round in Qatar, as quoted by Mike Aitken:

"I'm not saying anything significant today to anyone," Montgomerie insisted after posting 75 and missing the cut by a couple of shots at the Qatar Masters. "I will see you next week and I look forward to it."

"Out of nowhere, golf's very own snapping turtle has slipped into pole position to be named Europe's next Ryder Cup captain."

Vincent Hogan with a beautiful summation of the Monty-Ryder Cup captaincy ordeal:

As news stories go, this is a bit like Worzel Gummidge getting the chief MC gig for Milan Fashion Week.

'Monty', by the way, is one of this column's favourite people. He goes through life like someone with endless bone spurs in his neck, perpetually sore feet, looming migraine and the love-sick devotion of a fan whose camera shutter is louder than John Daly on a binge. No man cherishes a grudge more deeply, no one gives the impression of liking people less.

And yet I cannot think of anyone I'd prefer to see win a Major in 2009, outside -- of course -- of an Irishman.