Monty makes disappointing start

Having hit the news pages over his personal life, Colin Montgomerie set about trying to re-ignite his golf career today. But he did not make the best of starts.

The 41-year-old Scot, pictured with a famous Spanish model six months after the break-up of his marriage, resumed the Volvo Masters at Valderrama eight strokes behind joint leaders Sergio Garcia and Jose Manuel Lara.

And that became nine when he three-putted the first, his approach looking good in the air, but spinning 40 feet to the front fringe and his second putt from no more than three feet lipping out.

Montgomerie is the only player in the 54-strong field to have won on the Costa del Sol course and he has done it twice. But his world ranking has slipped to 70th since and he needs to climb back into the top 50 by the end of the year to guarantee himself a place in the Masters in April.

The Ryder Cup hero was paired with former team-mate Thomas Bjorn and that brought back memories of two previous clashes.

In this event last year Montgomerie stomped off a green and as he threw a ball, which hit a cart path and flew close to a window, Bjorn waved him on his way.

At the start of this season the Dane was furious when Montgomerie distracted him by walking over a bridge as he was chipping onto a green at the Johnnie Walker Classic in Bangkok.

They had clear-the-air talks with the tournament director afterwards and declared themselves good friends again.

Worse was to come for Montgomerie - and Bjorn. The latter ran up a bogey six on the fourth to slip to five over but Montgomerie's double-bogey seven sent him tumbling to seven over par.

Only three players were now below him – last year’s runner-up Carlos Rodiles on nine over and Anders Hansen and Marcel Siem on eight over. And Siem was playing with a wrist injury suffered in a fall coming out of his shower on Tuesday evening.

The German had been relieved when an X-ray revealed no break but was in pain throughout his opening 76.

First to make a move forward rather than backward today was Volvo PGA champion Scott Drummond, who birdied the first two holes and went to one over.

It was leaders out last, so Garcia and Lara had to wait until 2.20pm to resume after their opening 67s put them one ahead of Scot Alastair Forsyth and England’s Brian Davis.