Scot now puts charity work ahead of practice

WHILE still harbouring ambitions to "contend" on the European Tour - he was off to St Andrews yesterday afternoon to see if a golf technology expert could help him gain an extra 20 yards - Colin Montgomerie no longer spends his weeks off on the practice range.

Spare time away from golf is devoted these days to the Elizabeth Montgomerie Foundation in his mother's name and yesterday, at Archerfield Links in East Lothian, the 47-year-old said he was thrilled to announce a new charity partnership with the Scottish Golf Union and the Scottish Ladies' Golfing Association.

On the weekend of 16-17 July, all of the 580 golf clubs in Scotland are being encouraged to stage "Monty's Monthly Medal" with players paying 3 to enter. They could earn the chance to be among 80 qualifiers for a final, to be hosted by the Ryder Cup-winning captain, at The Carrick on Loch Lomond on 19 September.

Running alongside that event will be a competition to see which clubs can raise the most money in his bid to help build new Maggies Centres in Aberdeen and Lanarkshire, with the top three in different membership categories "Winning Monty for a Day". Montgomerie said: "To get all 580 Scottish clubs together to hopefully raise up to 1 million is fantastic."

He revealed work on the site of the Lanarkshire centre is due to start in September and it should open 12 months later, by which time it is hoped the money will also be in place for work to begin in Aberdeen.

"To see these centres built would give me more satisfaction than anything I have achieved in my career. I wish that we had one of these centres when mum was diagnosed 21 years ago," added Montgomerie before heading off for his technology test with Ed Robertson of Applied Golf Technology then on to Aberdeen for a charity fund-raiser tonight.