Monty relying on Ryder Cup wild card

Barring a miracle tomorrow Colin Montgomerie will now need a wild card to be part of Europe’s bid to retain the Ryder Cup next month.

As for Dubliner Paul McGinley, currently in the 10th and last automatic place in the points battle, he finished four over and joint 45th.

He has to climb 14 places to overtake ninth-placed Ian Poulter, who did not qualify for the Akron event.

But not so Englishman Luke Donald yet. A sparkling 65 in the third round of the NEC world championship in Akron today has re-ignited the 26-year-old’s hopes of playing his way into Bernhard Langer’s team.

Montgomerie came into the event requiring a top-nine finish to have any chance of grabbing one of the 10 automatic places following next week’s race-ending BMW International Open in Munich.

But after a third-round 75 including a double-bogey seven on the 16th and four bogeys the 40-year-old Scot – almost certain of a wild card, it is thought, in a side lacking experience – was down in joint 50th place on five over par, 16 adrift of leader Stewart Cink.

Donald’s task was even taller when he arrived in Ohio for his world Golf Championships series debut after falling out of contention in last week’s US PGA championship with a 75.

The former Walker Cup amateur star required a runners-up finish against the game’s best players to leave himself with an opportunity of claiming an automatic spot.

And as he signed for for a four-under-par 54-hole aggregate of 206 he was in a tie for ninth and only four strokes away from that second place.

That was held by David Toms, but he was a distant four strokes behind cup team-mate Cink, who on Monday was named as one of Hal Sutton’s two wild cards. Tiger Woods, joint second after a second round 66, was joint lying third.

Key man for both Donald and Jacobson in their pursuit of an automatic spot is Lee Westwood, fifth on the list of world ranking points earned in the past year which will determine the first five places in Langer’s line-up.

That is determined tomorrow, although neither Donald nor Jacobson realised that until Langer’s squad get-together on Tuesday evening. They thought the whole thing was decided after next week’s event.

If Westwood is in the top eight tomorrow then even second place is not good enough for Donald and it would then leave him needing to win in Munich to make it without being selected.

Westwood went to the turn in 31 himself and at one point was as high as third in the race for the first prize, but then came three bogeys in the next five holes to send him tumbling down to joint 11th on three under.