Jacklin - Monty still has Major potential

Tony Jacklin, the last European winner of the US Open, believes Colin Montgomerie can lift himself out of his current slump to be a contender for the title this week.

Montgomerie will tee off at Olympia Fields near Chicago on Thursday on the back of two successive missed cuts in Britain – and with the not-too-distant memory of six early exits in seven starts in America earlier this season.

But Jacklin said: “Once Monty gets the bit between his teeth anything is possible. Everybody saw the Ryder Cup last September how well he can play and on his day there is no greater threat. I still think that he can be our number one hope.

“The fact that he’s never won a US Tour event is absolutely incredible to me considering the ability he has.

“Unfortunately, he’s made life difficult for himself at times by getting involved in various scrapes with the galleries, but I hope he’s old enough and wise enough now to change the subject if anybody tries anything again.

“He’s essentially a nice guy with an incredible ability to play golf. In full flow he’s wonderful to watch.”

This week is Montgomerie’s 50th attempt to win a Major, starting with two qualifying failures for the Open Championship in 1988 and 1989.

It is also his last Major before he turns 40 – that comes on June 23 – and he knows that very few players in the modern game wait as long as he has and then do it.

The last was Mark O’Meara, 41 and playing his 57th Major when he won the 1998 Masters. Incredibly, three months later he lifted the Open as well.

And before O’Meara it was Tom Kite, 42 and in his 67th Major when he captured the 1992 US Open at Pebble Beach.

That was the week Montgomerie made his debut in the event – and nearly won. When he finished in mid-afternoon with a level par total a gale was blowing and Jack Nicklaus even congratulated him on what he thought would be a winning score.

But the Scot eventually finished third and there have been two even nearer misses since.

In 1994 he was in a play-off at Oakmont with Ernie Els and Loren Roberts – Els won – and in 1997 he produced a magnificent opening 65, but was heckled the next day and ended up losing by one – to Els again.

In the last three seasons, however, Montgomerie has failed to register one top-10 finish – not just in the US Open, but in all four Majors.

He had a 64 in the second round of the Open at Muirfield last year, but followed it with an 84 when the weather again turned wild.

Then came The Belfry and with the seven-time European number one top-scoring in the thrilling victory over the Americans – and appearing in the best of moods all week – nobody was writing off his chances of winning a Major at long last when they came round again.

That was then and this is now. Montgomerie’s string of missed cuts in the States included the Masters, where he had rounds of 78 and 76, and his failure to play all four days of either the Wales Open or British Masters makes a US Open title look remote indeed.

Jacklin for one, however, hopes that things might be about to change again.

The 58-year-old has said repeatedly over the years that he would not feel any resentment if his position as “last British winner of the US Open” was taken - just a feeling of pride in British golf.

“There’s no doubt that it’s the hardest Major to win and you need an element of luck,” he said.

“But when I won at Hazeltine it was the best golf I ever played in my life. I walked on water.”

Winner the previous July of the Open at Lytham, Jacklin had also tasted success on the US Tour when he arrived in Minneapolis. Yet still he felt resentment in the air.

“Run-of-the-mill players, not the stars, made it clear I was not welcome. They were miserable, mean-spirited people who looked on foreigners as unwelcome visitors who had come onto their patch and were taking money out of their pockets.

“Well, I’ve never met anybody who could help where they were born. I felt the brunt of it and was quite sensitive to some of the comments – but it made me want to win even more.”

On an opening day when 69 of the 150 players shot 80 or higher, Jacklin birdied five of the first nine holes and took a two-stroke lead with his one-under-par 71.

Then came three successive 70s, each one widening the gap further until he eventually triumphed by seven – the biggest win since 1921. It earned him 30,000 US dollars (€25,600).

“Even when I won some fellow competitors just walked by,” added Jacklin. And if nothing else I did have the satisfaction of putting two fingers up at guys like Dave Hill (the runner-up) or Howie Johnson, whose comment to me after I won was not ’Congratulations’, but a surly ’You holed some putts’.”

Thirty-three years on Jacklin senses things have changed.

He said: “Europeans go to America so much more now that friendships have been formed. There might be still one or two who don’t like the foreign invasion, but I don’t know that.”