Return to form would be greatest gift to Monty

Colin Montgomerie had no idea what his wife Eimear had planned for his 40th birthday today – maybe a VIP trip to Wimbledon with all the trimmings or perhaps a Prince William-style extravaganza at their luxury Surrey home.

But the Ryder Cup star has a clear picture of what he wants when he gets back to action in Dublin next week. A return to winning ways.

After his fourth place finish in the Diageo Championship at Gleneagles yesterday Montgomerie moved up from 37th to 24th on the European Order of Merit.

For a man who topped the money list for seven straight years and who in the three seasons since then has finished sixth, fifth and fourth that is clearly still not good enough.

But ending up just four strokes behind Danish winner Soren Kjeldsen was better than what preceded it – two successive missed cuts in Europe and a 42nd place in the US Open.

So as Montgomerie headed for home last night with one arm round his wife and the other round one of his daughters he was in a far better mood than he had been 24 hours earlier.

On Saturday night, after falling seven behind Kjeldsen, the Scot had the sort of outburst for which he is famous.

A face like thunder told its own story as Montgomerie missed out on what he felt should have been his best round of the year.

“For ... sake,” he shouted, only just managing to stop himself inserting the obvious word in between as he went to sign his scorecard.

“That was ridiculous – I turned a 64 into a 69 and I love doing that.

“I’m just not getting up and down. There were four par fives there where I’ve missed golden opportunities that I used to take as bread and butter.

“It doesn’t happen any more. Don’t know why, but I just can’t get up and down.

“I’m still optimistic. Don’t say I’m never optimistic, OK? Four par fives there that I never got up and down on, so I’m ****** off, OK?”

The final round brought the same score, but since he closed it with two birdies there were no explosions of temper afterwards.

“Overall I think this tournament is fantastic. It’s a great venue. I’m told it’s here to stay and I’ll be supporting it. It’s a fabulous course, a fabulous hotel and a nice place to be. The crowds were great too.”

The course is the one on which the 2014 Ryder Cup will be staged. Montgomerie will be 51 then and when asked if he was looking forward to facing the Americans on it he replied: “I might be doing something else, but not playing I can assure you.”

Kjeldsen captured his first European Tour title by two strokes from another Scot, Alastair Forsyth, with former Ryder Cup player Paul Broadhurst one further back.

The last time Broadhurst had a better finish than that was 1997 and it should spare him from a third-successive visit to the tour qualifying school.

Forsyth is now 20th on the Order of Merit, but Kjeldsen is all the way up to seventh after claiming the top prize.

He is the fifth Dane in little more than a year to win, the others being Thomas Bjorn, Anders Hansen, Soren Hansen and Steen Tinning.

Not bad for a country where there are only about 130,000 golfers.

“It’s a big weight off my shoulders,” he said.

“People were asking questions back home about when I was going to win. The other four made it look so easy and that made it tougher for me.”