MONTY, Monty: who else but Monty? Colin Montgomerie is either golf’s greatest underachiever or the finest golfer that ever drew breath. But when you talk about the Ryder Cup, golf’s brutal biennial test of sporting courage, Montgomerie’s greatness is unchallengeable.
And yesterday, with glorious unscriptable appropriateness, he sank the putt that won the Ryder Cup for Europe against the United States at Oakland Hills Country Club near Detroit. Team spirit and underdog bloodymindedness proved too much for mere excellence.
Montgomerie has always been golf’s greatest contradiction — a wee cow’ring tim’rous beastie in major championships, contests that reward individual brilliance and lonely self-certainty. But when it comes to the one- for-all-and-all-for-one of the Ryder Cup, he is a lion: a strutting stranger to self-doubt.
Montgomerie was the power behind Europe’s extraordinary first day of dominance. And at the business end of the competition, he was the main man. Team members visibly renewed their courage at his intransigence, and it was wonderfully suitable that it was his match that settled it: a last-hole victory over David Toms.
Montgomerie has never won a great championship but he has proved again that when it comes to golf’s supreme test of bottle, he is the best. They have come up with a new name for the Ryder Cup: Monty’s major.