Colin Montgomerie has expressed his relief at yesterday's five-stroke victory in the Murphy's Irish Open in Cork, which ended a barren 13 months without a European Tour success. The Scot admitted: "You wonder if it is ever going to happen again."
"This was one of the most important wins of my career, if not the most important. I've had an awful good look at myself in the last eight months and I am a better person now. I feel I can go forward. I think I wanted success too much. Success breeds success and I was on a conveyor belt I couldn't get off," he continued.
"But I've turned it around. I am a lot calmer on and off the course. I saw a lot of errors. There's nobody perfect and I'm not, but we can all improve. I see the warning signs all the time. But there's no conveyor belt now. I was looking at Order of Merit sheets every minute of every day and it got too much. I've got the T-shirt for the Order of Merit now (he won it a record seven successive years prior to last season) and I don't need that now. I want to savour this. To win again as this new person, if you like, means a lot."
"Thirteen months is the longest time I've gone without a win (in Europe: he did capture the Australian Masters in February) since 1991 and that also makes this possibly the most important victory of any. It's easy when you are on a bit of a roll, but if you've just written 56 bad articles then you're not confident of the 57th, I can assure you," said the 38-year-old Scot.
Europe's Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance will also be relieved, as Montgomerie has leapt from 13th to sixth in the table. This was the first time that Montgomerie had ever led from start to finish in a tournament. A Fota Island course record 63 put him out in front, and subsequent rounds of 69, 68 and 66 gave him an 18-under-par total of 266.
Montgomerie will be back in Ireland for the European Open, which starts at the K Club in Kildare on Thursday. He will be joined by new US Open champion Retief Goosen and Lee Westwood.
Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke will both hope to reproduce yesterday's good form, which saw them carding closing 64s to share second place with Swede Niclas Fasth. Harrington is now top of the Ryder Cup points list and he insists he is not concerned by the fact that since his maiden Tour victory in 1996 he has won only twice more and had 13 unlucky runners-up finishes. He was never going to catch Montgomerie this time, and four birdies in the last five holes left him delighted with his performance.
Clarke had survived the halfway cut with nothing to spare at level par, but played his last 36 holes in 13-under. He will return to the course where he shot a 60, two years ago.
Filed by Greg McKevitt
