Douglas hails ‘magical’ Monty

FILM actors are often given to hyperbole and self absorption. but when Michael Douglas last night described his playing partner Colin Montgomerie’s round of 65 at St Andrews as “magical” he was actually spot on.

Pro after pro wondered how anybody could have played the venerable old links in seven under when it was being swept by icy, forty-mile-an-hour winds. But Monty, runner-up to Tiger Woods here in the Open Championship in July, hardly put a foot wrong all day and if anything looked more and more composed as the elements worsened through the afternoon.

At the end of the day, he had improved to nine under par and led the €4 million Dunhill Links Championship by a shot from Englishman Kenneth Ferrie and by two from the Argentine Ricardo Gonzalez and Pierre Fulke of Sweden.