My thoughts on Monty before meeting him...

• I really admire his consistency in winning order of merit after order of merit and would have loved to see him win a major
• Pie eater!
• A very short fuse when playing
• A great Ryder Cup player
• An awesome Ryder Cup captain
• Not that great in the commentary box
• I suspect he will be a nice bloke off the golf course

Meeting Monty:

We played the seventh and eighth hole with him, a par five and four, so plenty of chance to chat. We actually first saw him on the sixth tee with the group in front of us.

The sixth tee is next to the halfway house and Monty came bounding out to tell us there were no sausage rolls left (previous expectation of Monty the Pie Eater confirmed).

I am always interested to see how my own game stacks up against tour players, and I was surprised to find that Monty and I hit the ball a similar distance off the tee. He actually hits it lower than I expected, but then he did mention that he was playing the Dunhill the next week, so he was perhaps preparing for a windy week!

I was impressed with how aggressive he was with short chips around the green and I managed to see him salvage a par from an awful lie in a green-side bunker.

Monty was putting with a belly putter and I asked him what he thought about the current talk about banning them. He said he didn’t think it was right to have a putter that can attach to the body…but didn’t seem too bothered as he found them much easier from five feet!

Typical golfer; if it works and it’s legal, I’m bloody using it.

Monty was good to talk to, a nice guy (although I wasn’t brave enough to take any photos at the top of his backswing) and he stuck around at the end to chat with everyone, and eat dinner of course!

The thing which surprised me a little, was his negativity towards a few comments about his past. I mentioned to him he had a good history around The Oxfordshire having won there. He acknowledged that but also brought up how he had also choked a fee times too. He actually answered the question, “Yes we have won round here before.”

I found the “we” very interesting. I almost interpreted that as a way of being able to blame someone else.

I wonder whether his lack of a major win is down to not having that mental edge?

Anyway, my final thoughts of Monty were all positive. Maybe one of the best Ryder Cup captains to date.