Monty's men land Seve hat-trick

COLIN MONTGOMERIE lifted the Seve Trophy for a third successive time yesterday - despite losing his own singles yet again.

After being beaten by Seve Ballesteros at Sunningdale and Druids Glen, Montgomerie this time went down to new Continental Europe captain Jose Maria Olazabal at The Wynyard near Middlesbrough.

But what really mattered to the Scot, who has never lost a Ryder Cup singles, was that his Britain and Ireland side, with David Howell and Paul Casey the stars of the show along with Henrik Stenson, ran out comfortable 16 1/2 to 11 1/2 winners.

And that after losing the opening fourballs 4-1.

Six of last year's Ryder Cup side were in Montgomerie's line-up while Olazabal had only two and the home team were able to cope much better without Luke Donald, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood than the Continentals were without Sergio Garcia and Bernhard Langer.

"The team did really well to come back as they did - and did better than I thought they would after that start," said Montgomerie. "Three wins in a row is great."

Montgomerie and Olazabal last went head-to-head in match play in the final of the 1984 British amateur championship at Formby.

Olazabal, then only 18, won that four and two to earn a trip to the Masters. This time it was two and one, with Montgomerie not able to win a hole after the seventh and losing when the Spaniard hit the flagstick with his tee shot to the 181-yard 17th.

They were the top game, but by then Britain and Ireland already had two more points on the board and so led by three.

Howell was a spectacular seven under par in thrashing Thomas Bjorn six and five, the biggest singles victory since the competition began in 2000.

Casey, who had already partnered Howell to three wins out of four on top of their Ryder Cup triumph together a year ago, quickly followed with a four and three victory over Niclas Fasth.

He may have lost his World Cup place to Howell with a fall down the world rankings, but after a horrible run of missed cuts and high scores in mid-season Casey is well and truly back on song.

Graeme McDowell then beat Maarten Lafeber five and four, being five under and also underlining a talent which many think will bring a Ryder Cup debut next September.

Ian Poulter, who had an eventful week to say the least, made it 13-10 by halving with Swede Peter Hanson.

On Thursday Poulter was criticised by Montgomerie for practising as play went on. On Friday he apologised. On Saturday he showed his displeasure at being asked to hole a short putt by Fasth and Henrik Stenson and refused to concede anything afterwards.

And moments after shaking hands with Hanson yesterday he was handed a letter from Ballesteros.

But he was not alone in that - every player got one and it was presumably Seve's explanation that he did not mean to be as critical of them as some reports had made out.

It followed his remarks on Saturday and also a newspaper article which could have left the impression that Ballesteros thought most players were "driving range attendants".

A number of players were enraged when they read the remarks, with Bjorn commenting before the start: "There are 10 great matches with 20 great players - even if Seve does not think so."

There were even rumours that some might not play in the inaugural Europe v Asia match under Ballesteros' captaincy in January.

Poulter said insisted he had not seen the comments and instead reflected on "a good week. I think everybody enjoyed it.

Stephen Dodd beat Jean-Francois Remesy two and one and Bradley Dredge's victory over Thomas Levet by the same margin ensured the trophy does not cross the channel.

Paul McGinley added another point with a one hole win over Miguel Angel Jimenez.

After Pádraig Harrington lost to Emanuele Canonica of Italy, 23-year-old Nick Dougherty agreed a half on the last green with Stenson, who like Howell and Casey finished with four points out of five.