Montgomerie pulls no punches

WHEN making his departure from the media centre at Congressional last month, Colin Montgomerie was warmly applauded by notoriously cynical scribes. It was partially an expression of sympathy at yet another near miss in the US Open but it had more to do with the candour and humility of the controversial Scot.

Montgomerie, who will be defending the Murphy's Irish Open crown at Druids Glen this week, ran the risk of ridicule by admitting he had wept over his Congressional failure. But that's his way. Whatever the circumstances, he is never afraid to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

Since then, he has found the perfect balm for the wound of a third top two finish in an American Major - through a week's break at home. There, he experienced the reassuring love of his wife and two daughters - and the comfort of his garage toilet.

"Golf is very much a job for me," he said. "I have my lovely wife and two lovely daughters. They're one, two and three in my life and golf is very much secondary to that. Whatever happens in golf, I will always put my family first."

He went on: "Having them helps enormously. When you hear the words 'Daddy's come home,' you realise there are more important things than me holing a putt or me finishing seventh, fifth or first much more important things in life than that.

"The children are everything in our lives, my wife's and mine. And that changes you. You realise your four foot putt doesn't really matter. And it doesn't."

And the toilet? "That's in my garage," he explained. "It's really the gardener's toilet. I've got my Ryder Cup bibs in there along with my Walker Cup stuff, my All American' plaques, winning posters, front covers of magazines, my invites to the Masters. I've got 'I love Dubai' stickers. You sit on the toilet and you could be a while reading it all. 'Where is he?' 'Oh, he's in the toilet having a look around'."

Elsewhere, there is plenty for wife Eimear, four year old daughter Olivia and year old Venetia to look at in their veritable mansion in the wealthy, stockbroker belt of Surrey.

Even if the Montgomeries don't need to keep a close eye on the cheque book stubs, the bills still have to be paid. Which explains his presence at Druids Glen, where the severity of last year's rough prompted him to describe it at Congressional as "a tough examination which I happened to overcome in the Irish Open." And he continues to win on a regular basis.

Early last month at Slaley Hall, the Scot birdied seven of the last 11 holes when capturing the European Grand Prix with a course record equalling 65. It was his 13th European triumph, enhancing his prospects of winning the Order of Merit for a record fifth successive year, so surpassing the target set by Peter, Oosterhuis.

His dominance in Europe has created understandable reluctance about crossing the Atlantic to ply his trade in the US on a regular basis. "I'll decide in November whether I play more in the States next year, he said. "Whether that means taking a tour card or playing another couple of events, I don't know yet.

"I'm very fortunate to have that option. If I take my card - and it's a big if I would go over early in the year and come back to Europe in May. In that way, I'd get the bulk of my 15 (mandatory) events done early."

The second son of a middle class Scottish family, he was born in Glasgow on June 23rd, 1963. With older brother Douglas, he was introduced to golf as a four year old at Troon, where the family had a holiday flat. By that stage they had moved to Yorkshire and after a successful career in the biscuit industry, his father became secretary of Royal Troon, a position he still holds.

As a public schoolboy, Colin caused experts to look long and longingly at his golfing exploits. So it was that in September 1983, he accepted a scholarship to the Baptist University of Houston, Texas. But only nine months after his arrival, he was back in England, to compete in the British Amateur Championship at Formby.

There, he battled through to the final and a meeting with a promising young Spaniard by the name of Jose Maria Olazabal who, incidentally, is returning to the Irish Open this week. "I was 20 and Olazabal was 18," he recalled. "And I can remember thinking 'Who's this guy. The Masters here I come.'"

But it didn't quite work out that way. Indeed his defeat marked the start of a painful pattern of near misses that would be repeated in professional Majors since his first near miss in the 1992 US Open at Pebble Beach.

Meanwhile, he developed his golf skills on the way to graduating with a better than average American degree in business and law. And invariably a diligent student, he showed himself to have a keen aptitude for work, attending classes in the morning and practising golf in the afternoon.

As a 24 year old, Montgomerie was head hunted by Mark McCormack's International Management Group for their European golf operation. "I played quite a bit of golf with John Simpson, the chap whom, I was going to work with at IMG," he recalled. "He thinking was why are you coming to work for us when we should be working for you.

Which is how professional careers are made.

Taking Simpson's advice, he turned professional in 1987, aware that if it didn't work out, he could happily turn to something else. "The point was that the putts didn't have to go in," he said. "Although I was quite confident I could be successful as a golfer, I had the insurance policy of my degree."

As it happened, he was soon on the way to becoming a very wealthy man in a relatively short space of time. And a Major breakthrough seemed at hand, when he set the target at Pebble Beach with an aggregate of level par, while the leaders fighting high winds out on the course, looked certain to come to grief.

"Jack (Nicklaus) shook my hand" he recalled. "I hadn't spoken to him ever before in my life. He said 'Well done on being our national champion.' I took a couple of breaths and thought 'What have I done?' I thought I was going to win - but it wasn't to be."

Since then, he has become a leading member of the "best player never to win a Major" club. "Sure, I've lost two playoffs in Majors and was second again at Congressional, but people in the media tend to make it a bigger thing than it actually is," he said.

"Obviously a Major would complete my career but the game doesn't owe me anything. I have to earn it. And if I never hit a golf ball again, I'll be proud of what I've achieved already, especially within the European game.

And what of his weight, which has fluctuated somewhat in recent years to the extent of leaving him "quite" svelte at the start of last season? "It's doing quite well," he said. "I went up to 17st 2lb and now I'm back to 14st 11lb and I'm happy with that. I don't want to talk about the weight loss too much."

His answers may lack expansiveness at times but, to his credit,

Montgomerie never ducks a question - even about those occasions when he has hurled the toys out of the pram in celebrated tantrums. "Is it such a bad thing that I'm not a pokerfaced person?" he asked.

As to the times when the lower lip quivers and blazing eyes reflect inner turmoil, he went on: "I can openly say that I have got a temper. I am not proud of having a temper but it does help to make me more competitive at times. It used to be my biggest weakness but I like to think that I've grown up.

"I tend to be too honest when I'm talking to people. If I'm unhappy about something, I like to say it, which enough people don't do, in my opinion. When I overreacted about things, I was never being anything but too hard on myself, even if there were occasions when my behaviour came across as unacceptable.

"My wife has helped me control my temper and my dad helped me too. And my brother helped me greatly. You realise when you see yourself on television that it's not the way you want to be portrayed. You are embarrassed. You regret it because you know your family cares. And that makes me care.

"Maturity is helping me get rid of the silly bits that have happened. My problem was selfdoubt, which was crazy, given the manner in which I progressed every year. But I'm still not where I want to be. I have a fantastic desire to succeed - which makes me impatient."

Never far from controversy, he is often a victim of his own candour, as in his criticism of Valderrama's long 17th, which has been re-shaped by Seve Ballesteros. He insisted: "I've said it before that if every hole at Valderrama was like the 17th, it wouldn't be ranked the number one course in Europe.

"It's on a plateau and completely out of character with the rest, which are lined by cork trees. It just doesn't work. Seve obviously tried to bring a sense of his favourite course, Augusta National, into the hole, introducing features from the 13th and 15th. But there's only one 13th in the world and it's at Augusta. That's it."

Fundamentally an honest man, Monty speaks decisively on matters important to him, his eyes locked on yours as he talks. Shiftiness is not a part of his body language.

Those witnessing his sharply contrasting behaviour are tempted to ask will the real Monty please stand up? But the truth is that these are opposite sides of the same person, the richly gifted tournament winner and the frustrated competitor at war with himself.

When slated for his behaviour a few years ago, Montgomerie vowed to "put a happy head on." Since then, there have been occasions when he has failed miserably. But one suspects that even his critics wouldn't want it any other way.