Colin Montgomorie, Europe's best player for the greater part of the last decade, will arrive in London this morning worried that his career may be over. Yesterday he withdrew from the Johnnie Walker Classic, at Lake Karrinyup in Perth, with a recurrence of back trouble that he believes will keep him out of next month's Accenture Matchplay Championship as well as the US Masters in April.
He had played 29 holes in the tournament before walking in. As he trudged disconsolately off the course he said: "That's me for four months. I'm not playing again until I'm fully fit." He revealed things had been so bad around Christmas he could not walk. "I was reduced to crawling to the bathroom," he said.
Montgomerie added he started to worry about his back problems in November. "There are four worn discs," he said, "and I don't know what the solution is but surgery is the last resort.
"I took a bit of a risk coming to Australia, obviously, and it hasn't worked out. I can't get through the ball, I can't change direction properly and that means I can't hit the ball properly. I'm not competing and, if I'm not competing, I'm not playing.
"I've got to go home and sort it out once and for all. I've had MRI scans and it was a lot worse than I thought it was going to be. I've got a very, very poor back, apparently, and I won't be playing in a long time I would think." He will be consulting a back specialist this afternoon.
This latest episode has left him even more worried given that it now appears to be an ongoing situation. If he cannot play for four months, that will mean not just missing the Accenture, the Masters and the Players Championship; he will also be under-prepared for the US Open in June.
As that is his favourite tournament and the major championship he believes offers him his best chance to win, he would be reluctant to miss it. But he also knows there are dangers in coming back too soon from a serious problem.
That problem is aggravated, of course, by the lifestyle of a successful professional golfer. On his way to Australia Montgomerie decided to stop off at various golf course design projects in the Far East. In 24 hours he collected 10 passport stamps in places including Macao, Hong Kong and China. It was hardly ideal for a man with a bad back.
Montgomerie would probably have been getting some $75,000 appearance money for making it to Perth and he was typically touchy at having to talk about the injury, especially when asked, no doubt mischievously, whether he would be turning up at the Heineken Classic in Melbourne next week.
Ironically, by leaving early Montgomerie will not be able to accept an award on behalf of Andrew Oldcorn at a function tonight. It is a new annual award for a player who has come back from injury or illness and Oldcorn, fully recovered from ME, went on to win the Volvo PGA championship last May.
Montgomerie was not the only withdrawal in Perth. Aaron Baddeley had a 72 and would have qualified on 145 but was found to have a temperature of 39 degrees and tonsillitis was diagnosed.
That left only seven players under par, headed by Retief Goosen. The European number one was six under, on 138, on a course that earlier had been likened by Ernie Els to a US Open test in terms of condition and difficulty. As Goosen is the US Open champion he was equipped to deal with a truly demanding challenge.
He was one ahead of Thongchai Jaidee, the overnight leader, with Sergio Garcia, who had two birdies in the last three holes, only four behind. Els was at one under and Nick Faldo, with a 73, was level par.
Justin Rose knocked seven strokes off his first-round 78 to survive the cut. The amputee Geoff Nicholas also improved by seven but, having managed only an 88 on the first day, the 40-year-old Australian still finished last on his European Tour debut.
