home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

WGC AMERICAN EXPRESS CHAMPIONSHIP

October 7, 2005

Colin Montgomerie

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

RODDY WILLIAMS: Colin, a 69, 1 under par today, obviously a more difficult time for you today. You were saying the jet lag is kicking in a bit today.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I was tired today, very tired. I managed to birdie 16 and 17, and then it was unlucky at the last. My ball just ran about six inches too far and into the rough and it cost me a bogey. Overall that's as good a round of golf as it was yesterday. It was more of a battle today. I didn't get off to the flying start I did yesterday, if you like, so it was tougher, very much tougher. I'm as glad with that round today as I was yesterday, so I'm still in contention, which is what I want to be obviously.

Q. As a guy who has done world traveling, and I remember you once said when you fly so many times over Greenland, you just wonder about it. Is there any particular reason you're having trouble with jet lag here, so did you just leave too late?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I just left too late, unfortunately. My first win in 19 months needed celebration. I needed to see my children on Monday night, so I flew here Tuesday. And I had a four hour delay on the runway with the flight on Tuesday morning, so I got here very late. It's different from New York because it's five hours different from the UK. This is eight hours difference from the UK, and it makes a big, big difference. So right now I'm quite tired, but that's all right, I'll go to bed this afternoon and I'll be okay for tomorrow. I'll be just getting better by the time I've got to fly home on Sunday and start all over again.

Q. When you say that the round, you're as pleased with it as you were yesterday, could this have got away from you? Are you pleased to have scratched out a 69?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yes, I am. I had about a 15 footer for a par on the 12th and that was to save me from going 1 over for the day and back to 5 under. So I holed that, and then if you told me to take another birdie from then on in, I would have taken it. It was beginning to get away 10 and 12. 12 especially is a difficult hole, and it was good to make par there. And then I managed to make a couple birdies, but the last hole was very difficult.

Q. How much do you watch the leaderboard when you're out there? And now that the weekend is here, will you start doing that even more?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yeah, I like to know what the position is. I like to watch leaderboards. I don't understand people who don't. I like to play to what I need to do. But that's for Sunday on the last three holes, really. You know, you pay attention but not to that extent. But I like to know where I am, mainly the last three holes, really.

Q. Still only two days, obviously, but a quick glance at the board, it's just incredibly benched.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: It is.

Q. From 7 all the way to 3. I'm wondering, what is it about the nature of this course that's doing that?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Well, I think the firmness of the greens is actually preventing balls from being hit too close, and therefore longer putts and two putts and we make 4s and we all go off together, and it's all bunched up. It prevents people from scoring very, very low. I think that the firmness of the greens, of which I am in favor very much I think that we have too many courses nowadays with soft targets, and this isn't; this is a firm course, and it therefore plays more difficult.

Q. Were you on the plane that they pumped too much fuel into the wing?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yes.

Q. Are you good at being patient in those circumstances?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I had no option but to be patient. If I'm not flying, neither is the captain flying with a wing that's leaking, especially when you've got the whole ocean to cross. We're glad we found it on the ground and not in the air.

Q. What flight was that?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Just a BA flight, just a standard issue flight over here. I was on the first one but ended up on the second. There's three a day over here.

Q. In your tired state, did the cool weather help you?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Yes, it would have been much, much worse if it was hot, much worse if I was playing in Singapore type weather or your August in Memphis or whatever you have over here, the hottest there is. But Baltusrol was very warm, obviously. If it was like that it would have been much worse. This was fine, much, much easier when it's this cool weather.

Q. What do you have planned for the off season?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: The off season, what is the off season? China, Japan, Hong Kong, LA.

Q. Are you coming back over for Tiger's tournament?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I've got to go to all these places yet. Did I say that, China, Japan, Hong Kong, LA, bloody hell.

Q. So you're playing in the Target?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Target Invitational in December, and I think I'll finish that and then I start off early January. So there's no off season, really, no off season at all. Crazy situation, but here we are.

Q. Is that okay?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I'm very tired. I've been all over the place this year, all over the place. I'm tired now. I'd just like to keep the adrenaline will keep me going these next two days. I'm playing okay and I'm putting okay. I'll take these other tournaments as they come.

Q. Is this the most you've traveled?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: This is the most I've traveled in my life this year, by far. I was trying to get in the TPC that I missed out on, trying to get in the Masters that I missed out on, and even the World Match Play, Accenture, that I missed out on, so I tried but I failed. Thank goodness I can set a decent schedule next year. I don't have to go to these far flung places.

Q. You were mentioning yesterday that at 43 you have a few good years left

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: 42 actually (laughter). Please, I'm only 42, thank you very much.

Q. You want to sort of push it and get all you can out of the next couple of years?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Definitely. The next five years are most important. I want to push it, try and get as much out of it as possible. Well, I'm a long time retired.

Q. Back to your flight schedule. I was just thinking about where Ernie goes, but more importantly how Ernie goes. You don't fly private, I take it?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I sometimes do in Europe, but definitely not across the ocean, no. So it makes a big, big difference for Ernie to do what to travel that way; Tiger, as well, whatever. But that's fine, they've earned that right or facility, whatever the case may be. But it doesn't matter.

As I said earlier, I have a decent seat, so I'm okay.

Q. Do you sleep on planes?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: No, not really. I think on planes. Why I'm up here (smiling).

Q. Did you pay much attention to the leaderboard as you were going around?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: If you had been here earlier you'd have heard my answer. No, I don't really pay much attention until the last few holes on Sunday, then I start looking around, but I know exactly where I am. I know the situation. Most people do. We all are aware of where we are and what's going on. It's more draining to be the leader, I suppose, than it is if you're lying 5th. But that's what it's about. That's probably why they pay you more.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297