August 2017Golf World 91“IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY
REGRETS AT 53, THERE’S
SOMETHING WRONG.”
Interview Nick Wright Portrait Angus Murray
Order of Merits, major misses and his love of America – Monty reflects on a life in golf.
At the end of the day, golf is not about how well you play,
it’s about how well you score. When I was paired with
Tiger in the third round of the Open at St Andrews in 2005,
I said to myself, “How are you going to beat Tiger Woods
today, Monty?” Christ, I’m not going to outdrive him.
I’m not going to hit better iron shots. I’m not going to chip
as well. I’m not going to putt as well. I’m probably not as
strong mentally, so how the hell am I going to beat him?
I told myself: “I’m going to beat him by scoring lower than
him today”. And I did. I shot 70 and he shot 71.
When I first came out on Tour, I’d walk up and down the
range and think to myself, “Woah, I can’t compete with
these guys – they’re hitting it miles.” Then I’d see that the
players who I thought were incredible ball-strikers had shot
74 or 75 and in the first round and I’d think, “What
happened? I’m not hitting it as well as them, but I’ve just shot
68 or 69.” I’ve discovered over the years that the guys who
make it are those who can shoot 69 or 70 on their bad days.
Great ball-striking is like possession in a football match.
It means bugger all if you lose. When I watched Liverpool v
Southampton this year, Liverpool had 78 per cent possession
and lost. I was always the 22 per cent possession guy who got
the job done. Scoring is everything.
When I hired Denis Pugh as my coach in the ’90s, the first
thing I said to him was, “Right, Denis, I’m coming to you
but I don’t want you to change anything.” I really just wanted
to find out where I was aiming. A great lesson for me with
Denis was, “Yeah, Colin, it all looks fine.” A lot of coaches
feel they have to say something, but Denis was wise enough
to say nothing. It gave me confidence and belief.
We never had launch monitors like Trackman or GC2 in
my day, but I always had an innate ability to swing the club
according to how far I wanted to hit it. It didn’t matter to
me what number was on the bottom of the club. I wasn’t
interested if it said 5-iron or 7-iron. All I was trying to do
was hit it 178 yards. I didn’t have a big ego.
People say the biggest strength of my game was my
distance control with my irons, but the only reason I was
able to do that was because I was in the fairway off the tee.
You can’t hit an iron shot pin-high from the rough. You can
only do that with a good lie. Yes, my iron play was good, but
my driving was better.The only time I’ve ever really been ‘in the zone’ was at the
Portuguese Open in 1989. I won by 11 shots. The hole was
like a bucket. I eventually stopped lining up the putts – and
they still went in. It hasn’t happened since. My next 10 wins
were all by one shot. Winning by 11 is easy. The difficult
wins are those where you’ve managed to birdie 17 or where
you’ve been able to hang on at the last to win by one.I won my first two European Tour Order of Merits using
ladies’ flex shafts in my irons. I’d probably have carried on
using them if it wasn’t for Nick Faldo. Playing together in
the 1995 Ryder Cup, he said to me, “Let’s look at these irons
a minute”. He looked them over and said, “My God, Monty,
what the hell are these? They’ve a hell of a flex.” I had them
tested on the Tour truck and discovered they were ladies
A-flex. It was a huge error to test them. As soon as I found
out they were A-flex, they were out the bag the next week.My game was just perfect for the US Open. At
Congressional in ’97, I was playing the best golf of my life
and leading the tournament when I had an encounter with
a couple of fans that sent my career in America into a
downward spiral. I shot 65 the first day. The second day,
though, there was a rain delay. A couple of fans had had a
drink and I made the mistake of answering back. I said
something like, “Save it for the Ryder Cup”. Pretty harmless,
but it was caught on camera. It cost me that US Open. I had
three rounds in the 60s but the 76 on the 2nd day was just
too high. If that 76 had been a 75, I’d have made a play-off.That mistake caused me problems for about 10 years.
It was especially difficult because I was No.2 in the world
to Greg Norman and it was amplified further because I’d
also become a big threat to the Americans in the Ryder Cup
at that time. Do I regret it? Of course. But if you don’t
regret something at 53, there’s something wrong with you,
isn’t there?Going to university in America was the best decision
I ever made in my career. But I didn’t go just to play golf.
I actually wanted to get my degree. I wanted the option to be
able to stop playing if things weren’t working out. I hate thePERSPECTIVES
COLIN MONTGOMERIE