WHEN Colin Montgomerie’s final putt sank and the 18th green erupted with the sound of triumph, he dropped his putter to the ground and put his hands to head. Quite what emotions were racing through him at that particular moment, he tried to explain, but in vain.
Two years ago, when Paul McGinley sunk the Ryder Cup-winning putt, he said he felt like an exploding magnum of champagne. For Montgomerie, however, this year particularly, it seems to go rather deeper. “Emotional?” was the question from the interviewer on Five Live.
“Yes,” he replied with a watery sheen in his eyes. “For me more than most.”
The emotional pinnacle of this Ryder Cup could hardly have soared higher. It is not Montgomerie’s wish to have the mess of his private life entwined with this exhilarating sports story. But it is no secret that he has plumbed unprecedented depths in recent months as his marriage finally and publicly came to an end and to have returned to this most public of golf forums and managed to raise himself to such heights that he was again able to be the leader of the European is an achievement of which he feels deep pride.
When the singles pairings were announced on Saturday evening, it seemed that yesterday’s denouement was primed for a Monty finish. We had a Monty finish back in Valderrama in 1997 when Bernhard Langer sank the putt to notch up the 14 points and retain the Ryder Cup and Montgomerie then beat Scott Hoch to win it. Montgomerie himself swears that it matters not a jot who it is who experiences that dramatic moment, but he has certainly thought about it.
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Yesterday morning, he and Lee Westwood discussed it. Westwood going out fifth, Montgomerie going sixth: there was a good chance it would be one of them.
At times yesterday it looked unlikely. The Europeans in front of him, initially, were not doing well enough. And then when they started putting blue points on the scoreboard, Montgomerie himself started slipping up.
He went into an early two-hole lead over David Toms but had Toms putted better, he would have caught him earlier. But Toms did manage to level the match at the 12th, Montgomerie went ahead again and Toms clawed his way back again on the 15th.
But the Ryder Cup draws a quality of golf from Montgomerie that we rarely ever see elsewhere.
On the 16th yesterday, we saw it again: a magnificent putt for birdie. Then, on the 17th, a magnificent rescued par. And then, there we were, as Westwood and Montgomerie had discussed earlier, primed for the full Montgomerie finish on the 18th. For those who want to be exact and precise about this, it was Westwood who sunk the putt to win the 14th point and retain the Cup. And to be exact, it wasn’t really Montgomerie whose putt clinched the victory. With Montgomerie on the 18th, guaranteed half a point but not yet played out, away on the 15th, Ian Poulter sank a putt which put him dormie three. So that was 14½ points.
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But no one remotely cared. Montgomerie cast his spell on the 18th and sent a wave of electricity around the green as members of the team, the captain, wives and caddies all thronged on the fringe.
Chants of “Monty” greeted him as he arrived at his ball, horribly positioned an undulating 45 feet from the pin. The putt that followed was breathtaking, stopping just three feet from the hole. And when that one went down, victory pandemonium exploded like McGinley champagne. Montgomerie was wrapped in a long, warm embrace by Langer, the pair of them suddenly surrounded by a wall of cameras.
Meanwhile the players embraced, the wives danced and the enormous 18th green gallery began the football chants. “Monty! Monty!”, “We love you Monty, we do” — all the usuals that ever so rarely find their way onto the golf course.
As we have noted so frequently since Friday morning, Montgomerie is a player defined by this magnificent event. The same was as true this time as ever, and that was the case right until he sunk that final three-foot putt. As Montgomerie struggled to explain, with those tears in his eyes, he wasn’t simply at the end of 18 stirring holes. He had completed a far more arduous journey.