Monty ends Seve jinx

Colin Montgomerie finally beat Seve Ballesteros in the Seve Trophy at El Saler in Spain - but only after an early scare.

Ballesteros, 1,231st in the world, was looking for his third successive victory over Britain & Ireland's captain, and led by two after seven holes.

But then the 46-year-old Spaniard's game fell apart. He lost the next seven holes to suffer a five-and-four defeat.

It was not pretty. He bogeyed the eighth, 11th, 12th and 14th - and double-bogeyed the 10th to be an approximate six over par.

That was the first game to finish, but Continental Europe's hopes of retrieving a 10-8 overnight deficit had already suffered a blow with Thomas Bjorn pulling out because of a neck injury and conceding defeat to Paul Casey after a discussion between the captains and officials.

Bjorn had not teed off, but it needed to be at least 30 minutes before the start of all the singles for a half to be agreed with a player of Montgomerie's choosing.

The Dane, however, thought he might be okay and it was only in his final warm-up that it was decided he was not fit enough. He could miss this week's World Cup in America as well.

Britain & Ireland needed 2 1/2 points from the eight remaining singles to retain the title and they led in five of them.