Colin Montgomerie eyes 30 seniors events

The three-time winner of the European Tour’s flagship event returns to competitive action in the BMW PGA Championship today for the first time since “playing badly” in the Avantha Masters in India two months ago.

He hosted the Celebrity Cup, an event involving the likes of Ant and Dec, Gordon Strachan and Jodie Kidd at Celtic Manor, before taking to the roads last week to compete in the Mille Miglia, a 1,000-mile car race from Brescia to Rome.

“I did that with Tim Abbot, the managing director of BMW, in a 1937 Berlin-Rome BMW,” said Montgomerie at Wentworth, where he claimed three successive victories in this event from 1998-2000. “They’ve come a long way in 80 years, but we had a fantastic little car.

“I got into it through meeting some real petrol-heads. I had three days off and thought it would be a good idea and it was superb. We went through San Marino and into Rome and I really enjoyed it. But I’m paying the penalty now because it was very small and it wasn’t very good for the back. But I have had physio, so we’re okay now.”

Delighted to raise £75,000 for charity through the event at Celtic Manor, Montgomerie is hoping he can reproduce the form that earned him a top-ten finish here two years ago. He has one eye, however, on a career in the over-50s ranks, which will start in the Senior Players’ Championship in Pittsburgh next month then continue in the Senior Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in July.

“I plan to play 30 tournaments next year, which is more than I do now,” revealed the eight-times European Tour No 1. “I’m going to play five here [on the European Tour], five on the European Seniors Tour and 20 on the Champions Tour in America.”

The latter commitment will require him and wife Gaynor to establish a US base, something Montgomerie resisted despite a clamour for him to do so when his regular Tour career was at its peak.

“Not this year till I find my way around but eventually,” he said. “Gaynor and I have been looking for places, obviously in the south. You can’t go to Chicago. You might as well be in Scotland.

“Everyone seems to live in Florida,” he added. “I prefer Atlanta or the Carolinas, or maybe go back home to Dallas or Houston [where he went to college] or even California.”

In the past at Wentworth, Montgomerie always felt he stood on the first tee with a very good chance to win. Part of a 14-strong Tartan Army on this occasion, he’s feeling less confident these days having slipped to 653rd in the world.

“I was seventh here two years ago and had a putt on the last green for fourth that I still don’t know how it didn’t go in,” he said. “If all goes to plan, I can still do that. Win? To be honest, probably not, but if it all goes to plan I can finish in the top ten and that would be a good performance and give me loads of confidence to take forward to a new chapter and a new career in my life.”

In yesterday’s pro-am, he was partnered by three Sirs – Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent and Clive Woodward. “I was the only so-called commoner,” he joked. “But it’s work in progress!”