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Though 56-year-old Colin Montgomerie had the odd spat with US crowds in his heyday, most notably at the 1999 Ryder Cup, he will tell you that the Americans have warmed to him in the past seven years and he to them. At the same time, he feels comfortable in the company of his fellow seniors on the PGA Tour Champions, which has been his place of work since 2013.
“It’s all so much more relaxed than it was before,” he says. “It’s serious when the gun goes but, before and after a round, we tend to talk less about golf than families and college football.”
Yet the most telling relationship Monty has today is that with Sarah Casey, his manager and, more recently, his partner, too. “We’re a team,” he says. “We travel together and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Sarah has been in golf all her life (she worked for European Golf Design before being employed in a management capacity for IMG) and she knows the game – and me – inside out. She ‘gets’ the pressure side of things and how it applies on and off the course.”
At this point, GGP had one of those hands-on-heart questions for this winner of one US Senior Open and two Senior PGA Championships. If, say, he has finished a day with a three-putt green and a 75, would he still do what he would have done before in promptly excusing himself from a dinner engagement?
He didn’t begin to bristle at the question.
“Let’s put it this way,” he decided. “Fifteen years ago, or even 10, I would have pulled out. I would have gone on about those three-putts for at least a couple of hours. Today, if I’m still complaining at the end of half an hour, I will snap out of it, usually before Sarah has to intervene. We’ll go wherever it is – and I’ll probably forget about my golf. Not all at once but pretty quickly.”
He will tell you that the cumulative intensity attached to his seven successive Order of Merit titles on the European Tour was something he found tough to handle: “It was as if I was on a conveyor belt. I was having to improve just to stay where I was; finishing second wasn’t an option because that was going backwards.
“Something had to give in those circumstances. Because it was always on my mind, I missed out on time with my family, and even on the time I should probably have spent chilling out rather than worrying about what I could win next. I can't say I would do things differently if I were starting out all over again because I’m a very competitive person. Also, there’s no getting away from the fact that I’m proud of what I achieved.
“My kids didn’t understand at the time, of course they didn’t. But it meant the world to me when my son, Cameron, caddied for me in (the Omega Dubai Desert Classic) last year. I showed him the plaque at the 18th – it’s about my shot to the green to win in 1996 – and I remember looking at his face, sensing his pride and realising that he understood a whole lot more than had applied before. It was a fantastic moment and I was sad that the experience wasn’t going to last for four rounds rather than two.” (Monty had rounds of 71 and 75 to miss the cut.)
Cameron, who is studying marketing at the University of Bath in England, plays off scratch and Monty suggests that that combination should stand him in good stead in the modern business world.
GGP asked if his son wasn’t doing precisely the same as he had done at the same age – namely, graduating in business at a time when he had good golfing credentials. (To recap, Monty’s next move had been to look for a job opportunity with IMG and to go for a game-of-golf-cum-interview with Ian Todd and Peter German, two of the company’s top executives. At the end of nine holes, Todd had turned to him and said, “Why work for us when we could work for you?”)
Having agreed that some of what Cameron is doing mirrors his own career path, Monty was quick to note that things today are not what they were. “In my time there were only 25 people who could win an event. Now, it’s 125. I was chatting with Fred Funk not so long ago when he had his son Taylor on the bag. They were telling me that there could be 240 people playing for eight spots in the Monday qualifiers on the Challenge Tour. It’s unutterably tough.”
“An 8-iron has always been my strength and nothing’s changed in that I still can’t wait to pull that club out of the bag.”
Colin Montgomerie
You ask Monty if there is anything in his golf which is better than it was in the 1990s and he produces the following statistic: He still averages precisely the same 275 yards off the tee as he was 25 years ago. “It’s not me, of course, and my swing speed certainly isn’t what it was. It’s all down to new technology.”
When it comes to his 8-iron, Monty says that here again, he tends to get the same results as he did in his heyday, only this time it is down to him. “An 8-iron has always been my strength and nothing’s changed in that I still can’t wait to pull that club out of the bag.” In which connection he recounts a practice round he had with Brad Faxon at Augusta one year: “Brad obviously enjoyed that same feeling when he pulled out his putter. You could see the look in his eye. It was a great way for him to feel, especially on those greens.”
Moving on to fitness for the over-50s, Monty says that Bernhard Langer’s example has taught him a thing or two about the need to stay flexible. “It’s losing that flexibility which is going to stop us all eventually. It stopped Faldo; it stopped Lyle. Langer’s amazing for a man of 62; he’s certainly kept his.”
Monty has taken up pilates and, when you ask, mischievously, if that was last week, he is delighted to be able to report that he has been doing it for 18 months. And he says that the reason he has kept going is because it made an almost immediate difference. “All of a sudden, I could turn round more easily when I was reversing the car.”
And diet?
“It’s not something I find easy,” he said. “I try to be careful, but there’s food everywhere you look in America.”
On the same evening as our interview, Catriona Matthew, the Solheim Cup captain, said there was something she longed to know about her Scottish compatriot. “Ask how he stays so motivated, if you would.”
Monty didn’t have to think about it.
“It’s because I’m always learning. It may be from a shot I’ve come up with myself or, more likely, from one I’ve seen someone else play. When you’re no longer interested in picking up on something new, that’s probably the time to stop.”
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