Montgomerie plays role of hero, everyman to masses
The mutterings and gloom would have been abroad in the golfing shires of the United Kingdom. The Jonahs would have been shaking their heads mournfully and, no doubt, a few tears would have diluted the gin and tonics in the members' bar.
You can almost hear the snatches of doom-laden chat wafting across the ether. "Another failure" ... "He blew it again" ... "The stupid idiot double-bogeyed from the middle of the fairway"... "Serves him right that he didn't win"... "No wonder he's never won a major".
And on and on it would have gone. The subject of all this lachrymose
musing was, of course,
It would be easy to join the knockers in their lament. Not us. OK, so he could have won the thing. Heck, he SHOULD have won it. The fact that he didn't is a cause for regret for those among the golfing community who think the guy deserves one. Why, there is even an increasing number of members of that constituency in America. They yelled and they whooped their support for the big man in the four days at Winged Foot Golf Club.
To be sure, it was a shocking error on hole No. 72, but now let us think a while. A couple of years ago Montgomerie looked to be heading out of town on a fast train. His future was all behind him, he was a busted flush. He looked it, too.
But what has happened to the undisputed holder of the title of Best Player Never To Win A Major since? He was monumental in the Ryder Cup in Detroit in 2004, he finished second to Tiger Woods at St. Andrews last year with a performance that rehabilitated him as a force in the game. Then he won the European Order of Merit for the eighth time.
We sports fans on this side of the Atlantic, particularly the Brits among us, are a fickle bunch. Every so often somebody comes along to represent us in the upper echelons of a sport and we embrace them. When they don't produce what we want them to, we then turn on them and snap, snip and denude their standing.
A classic example of the breed is Tim Henman. The U.K. had nobody who could live with the best Americans in tennis until Henman came along. For a decade or more we ached with him as he tried, time after valiant time, to win a Grand Slam championship.
He didn't do so and probably won't now. But that is not the point. A man can only be as good as his very best -- and if that is not quite good enough, as good as we want them to be, we turn on them. We build 'em up then knock 'em down.
It's the same with Monty. Like Henman, he should be celebrated as a distinguished flier of the Union Flag, for their sort don't pass our way very often.
Montgomerie is the best British player since Nick Faldo; we should be glad that we have had him in our midst and, make no mistake, that is where he has been, no matter that he was on the other side of the ropes.
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| Colin Montgomerie has two runner-up finishes in his career at the U.S. Open. (Cohen/ WireImage) |
But now consider the burden under which he has plied his trade with such brilliance for the better part of the last two decades.
He never lost sight of the fact that if he walked one day into the winner's enclosure at one of the world's four greatest championships he would be the proxy voter representing millions of people in an election whose purpose was to elect the best of the best.
He has been extraordinary. And if he has not been quite extraordinary enough, is that such a crime? The perfection of his game has been defined by his imperfections.
For a man who has pulled off almost superhuman feats (nobody will ever win seven Order of Merit titles again), he has bled and hurt, ached and grieved. So have we, for him, and so has he, for us.
When it's all added up, he has shown us that he is human, with human frailties. And you know what? We should be heartily glad about that. Step forward, Colin Stuart Montgomerie -- Hero and Everyman.
