Missing out is killing me, says Monty

COLIN MONTGOMERIE was the halfway leader the last time the Open came to Lytham — but this year he is just passing through.

The Scot drove down from Perthshire yesterday to present a Spirit of Golf Award to Peter Alliss in his capacity as Golf Foundation President.

The golf bag has been left behind in Dunning, but the memories of 11 years ago have not. The prospect of not teeing it up on Thursday morning for another crack at the championship is hard to bear.

Monty said: “It’s awful being here without my clubs.

“It’s killing me. I tried to qualify and just missed by one and this hurts, especially on this course that I feel gives me the best opportunity of doing well.

“I know a links course gives me my best opportunity and this one particularly does because it’s one of the shorter ones and one of the most demanding off the tee, which is my strength. So this hurts.

“It was fantastic for me here in 2001.

“I started with a 65 and had a three shot lead over the field, led after two days, but unfortunately didn’t sustain that form over the weekend when I needed to do so.

“I had what you might call sympathetic support out there because of the fact I hadn’t won a major and I think they thought ‘could this be it?’

“After coming close a few times, I think the general public were willing me to win.

“As I was coming in here today, I was thinking about the birdie I made on the last on the Thursday to lead by three shots — that’s a big lead in an Open after one day.

“Even then you start to think ‘is this it?’

“Everyone says you need to take one shot at a time but that’s impossible — you automatically get ahead of yourself.

“It’s a great golf course, it was also my kind of golf course where I could find the fairways then, especially in the first two rounds.”

There are not many surprises in Montgomerie’s list of potential champions.

He said: “If you look at the top 10 in the world they are there for a reason.

“If you look at our Ryder Cup team and the US Ryder Cup team at the moment then generally there’s your winner.”

Another Scot who will be feeling the pain of not competing this week is Marc Warren.

He had the Scottish Open and a place at Lytham in his grasp before blowing a three- shot lead with five to play at Castle Stuart.

The former European Ryder Cup captain has backed his fellow countryman to drag himself off the canvas, however.

He said: “I feel a lot of sympathy for Marc Warren.

“He’s become a good friend over the years after we won the World Cup for Scotland for the first time. I watch his scores every week and was just hoping he would hang on. Unfortunately he didn’t.

“It is a big deal to win the Scottish Open — I know that myself — and it was a pity because the way he was playing on Sunday he could have competed here as well.”