There is no holding Colin Montgomerie at the moment. The Scot, for so long the best player in Europe and now a tournament winner again, is resurgent after a mid-season and mid-year revival. The pattern that is so obviously at work with Montgomerie is that the better he plays, the better he feels and the better he talks.
Not content with finishing third in the French Open near Paris two weeks ago and winning the European Open at the K Club, Co Kildare, on Sunday, Montgomerie has taken on Tiger Woods, the sport’s greatest player, and decreed that the Woods of 2007 is not the player he was seven years ago.
Woods’s form has given hope to his rivals because he is beatable, Montgomerie said, a statement that is borne out by the success in this year’s Masters and the US Open of Zach Johnson and Ángel Cabrera respectively, each of whom won their first major championship by keeping Woods at bay.
Montgomerie has been around for so long that there are not many topics on which he has not expounded. On the subject of Woods, Montgomerie has form, most notably at the 1997 Masters, which Woods would go on to win by 12 strokes. The pair played together in the third round and afterwards Montgomerie was asked who was going to win the next day.
The Scot arched his eyebrows. “ Ifhe wins,” Montgomerie began in a stage whisper and putting heavy emphasis on the word. “Let me tell you this. Tiger Woods is going to win this event. Where have you been? Have you been on holiday? Haven’t you been paying attention?”
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It is also worth remembering how the previous night Montgomerie was whistling a different tune. He suggested that Woods’s lack of experience as a professional might hamper him when the two men played alongside one another in the third round. In short, Montgomerie intimated that he, at 33 and the winner of the Order of Merit in Europe four times to that date, would be able to deal with the pressure better than a 21-year-old tyro. The result of that bravado was as follows: Woods went round Augusta National in 65, Montgomerie in 74.
Montgomerie was in his element yesterday, on the eve of the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond. It did him no harm that he won this event at this venue in 1999, just before the Open at Carnoustie. Lob him a question and you knew he would give you back a good 45-second soundbite delivered with confidence.
He was asked whether he shared the view that Woods was not invincible. “Yes,” he said. “When Aaron Baddeley triple-bogeyed the 1st hole [in the fourth round of the US Open last month], Tiger was leading and you thought, ‘Well, that’s it.’ It didn’t happen and it is encouraging that that can happen. It has given us hope. I think that in 2000 he was invincible, but now possibly not so.
“I believe it is possible to beat Tiger Woods. You certainly wouldn’t have had money on Zach Johnson and Ángel Cabrera winning the first two majors [of the year]. Although he [Woods] was second in both, it has been possible to beat him.
“I am glad that Tiger is making it across [to Britain]. There was doubt that he wasn’t making it through the birth of his child, but we’re all glad that he’s coming over. Because it [an Open without Woods] would be like Wimbledon without [Roger] Federer. It wouldn’t be the same.”