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In praise of Monty - the moody bugger

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Bill Elliott, renowned golf columnist, gives a personal view on the best European player of the last 15 years

He's back. And this time he is Chairman of the Championship as well as one of the favourites for the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.

I'm referring, of course, to Colin Stuart Montgomerie who gets to strut his stuff in Scotland this week and nobody struts better than Monty especially when he is 'back hame amidst his ain folk'. Actually, Monty has taken strutting to a new level during a career that has seen him lift 31 European Tour titles whilst simultaneously dropping a number of sensational clangers.

While pro golf always has enjoyed more than its fair share of prima donnas, Monty is something else. His strops have to be seen to be believed. Indeed, having witnessed a number of them I still can't quite believe they happened. Childish, immature, silly, unforgivable, daft, inexplicable, very irritating and unpredictable. These, by the way, are not my words, they are his.

This is the nice thing about the big Scot...he is, eventually, his own biggest critic. "I don't know why I do some of the things I do but I just can't help myself sometimes. Even I have to cringe, " he once told me. But it has not stopped him chastising galleries for breathing too hard, attacking photographers for, guess what, taking photographs and storming past punters as though they did not exist.

Catch Monty on a bad day and you'd better watch out. On the other hand his strops have added hugely to the gaiety of most occasions, at least as much as his victories have impressed those of us who pay any real attention to the surreal world of professional sport. No-one, in my experience anyway, has been better company that Monty and no-one has irritated me more on occasion.

A decade or so ago a senior European Tour official, commenting on Colin's latest fine for some misdemeanour, said: "You know the problem with Monty is not that he has an opinion and expresses it forcefully. That's his right. No, the problem with him is that he has an opinion on absolutely bloody everything."

What is also true, however, is that the European Tour would have been a less enjoyable place without his often glowering presence. It is not just the record eight European No.1 titles he has wrestled to the ground (a record that, for me, far outdistances the one major he still covets) it is his presence, his sense of fun, his intelligence, his willingness to stand up and be counted, his instinct for taking the fight to the Yanks and much else, that has helped the Euro circuit grow during his time on board.

He will be cheered on as he competes in Perthshire this week and so he should be. Born in Glasgow, raised first in Yorkshire and then at Troon where his dad was secretary, Montgomerie is rampantly proud of his tartan heritage. And they, for the most part anyway, are proud of him.

A few weeks ago he held a press conference at Gleneagles during which he spoke proudly about his ongoing position as chairman of the Johnnie Walker Championship, a role he takes as seriously as he often does life itself. During his, as ever, interesting lecture to the assembled hacks he managed to knock over his glass of water not once but twice.

The first time this happened we laughed, the second accident, however, invoked an embarrassed silence at his clumsiness. Suddenly Monty looked up, his face reddening, to tell us very seriously: "It's not my fault you know. It's this flipping table, it's got the wrong camber or something."

That's Monty for you. It's always the table's fault at the time. Priceless, bless him...