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DUBAI DESERT CLASSIC

March 3, 2005

Colin Montgomerie

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: Not bad. Started off, you always want to birdie the 10th, your first hole and I didn' do that and then bogeyed the easiest hole on the course the 17th but then got it back it birdie on the 18th, first and the third so 3-under. It's a long way in from the fourth hole onwards actually. Four through nine are very tough. You always want to sort of hold onto what you've got really 4 through 9, that's the toughest part of the course and I didn't, I managed to bogey the 8th hole but I managed a good par at the last. So it equals itself out. 70 is okay. Not a great start but it's a start all the same and it will be added to tomorrow with a 60-something.

Q. Conditions not easy when the course is a bit breezy?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: The greens are drying out. It will be more difficult this afternoon. It will be interesting to see what Ernie scores this afternoon.

It's funny. This course tends to play somehow easier in this wind with the wind, seems crazy thing to say as a golfer that a course would be easier in the wind, but three of the four par 5s play straight downwind. 10, 13 and the third play downwind, only one played into the wind, which is 18.

So therefore, you have three great chances at birdies and the par 4s are all reachable even into the wind. So it is a course that doesn't play any harder in the wind, if you like. It's a strange little thing, but shouldn't be too far away from the lead hopefully and then we'll see about tomorrow afternoon.

Q. How do you see the captains, Woosnam and Faldo?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: We had a golden opportunity to select two prime candidates and we took it. First time ever. I think it was Ian Woosnam's turn, if you like, he's been vice captain before and it as his turn. And Nick has always been a special case, Nick, in a way; that he's Europe's best ever player and Ryder Cup's most-ever points-scorer. So we couldn't feel that he had been left out in any way, so in that way we gave him 2008, if you like. And hopefully it has been seen as a positive step, not just for everyone here but for the Tour and everyone concerned and that leaves the captain issue dead for 3 1/2 years, thank goodness and we can hopefully talk about something else.

Q. An important par on the last?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: It was a good par because I was all over the place. I pulled a couple of drives on eight and nine. Got into trouble and I bogeyed one of them -- but that's okay, 73, 71.

Q. How far?

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: About eight feet, nine feet, missable. They all are, they all are, as you well know.

Q. We thought we would see some really good scores but nobody is so far.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: No, I think the pins are set at the back of the greens, the rough is quite difficult, and if you get yourself in the wrong position, it's easy to make bogeys. But the greens are quite grainy for the first time in many years, and there's a lot of grass on them and they haven't taken that off yet and I think the greens are quite grainy. It's amazing how many putts are missing. The greens seem pure but they are quite grainy. So it's obviously more difficult than imagined.

But I would be with Ernie, I was thinking 66 and 65 but there hasn't been any this morning and whether there will be, I don't know, but we'll wait and see.

End of FastScripts.

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