Monty is confident

Golf is a game of ifs and buts but positive thinkers such as Colin Montgomerie tend to ride roughshod over problems real or perceived.

You don't win seven European order of merit titles on the trot by fretting about other people's prospects, which is why Montgomerie firmly believes he can defy the odds and achieve a straight eight.

Despite missing the cut in Munich and trailing home tied 46th in Paris, on his last two tour outings, the 37-year-old Scot goes into the Belgacom Open here today insisting: "I've got this and three more big tournaments to come, and I know I'm good enough to win them all."

More realistically, the man with over £10 million sterling in European career prize money to his credit has set his sights on winning three of the four to retain his European number one crown.

Montgomerie is an optimist. He currently lies fifth in the official money list, more than £470,500 sterling behind the table-topping Darren Clarke. If he wins on Sunday and Clarke misses the cut he will still be £368,539 adrift.

"Current form is obviously not as good as I would like but I've been practising an awful lot down at Wisley in my time off and I'm as determined as ever," he says.

"I came from fifth in the last tournament to win the order of merit in 1993 and I'll have to do similar this year. I'm looking forward to the challenge."

Clarke, second in Paris, third in Switzerland a week earlier and a former winner here at Royal Zoute, tees off £59,400 ahead of Lee Westwood, the Belgian champion in 1998. But the door is ajar. Clarke will miss next week's big-money German Masters to be with his wife for the birth of their second child.

Westwood keeps on insisting golf is not his be all and end all right now. After four victories in nine outings he has faltered fractionally and says: "Golf would rank fourth out of my top five priorities. The world is not going to stop turning if I don't win the order of merit."

Westwood, whose principal concern is his newly acquired Nottinghamshire mansion on 64 acres, 12 of which he has used for an elaborate practice area, points out that it is all likely to come down to the final world golf championship in Spain in November with its $1m jackpot.

With no little bitterness he argues: "The order of merit should be about consistency over the year, not one good week."