Montgomerie misses out again

Colin Montgomerie is sitting out the weekend for the sixth tournament running - this time all because American Chad Campbell sank a 15-foot putt.

The worst run of Montgomerie’s career was extended last night when he missed the cut at the Masters as a result of Campbell’s closing birdie putt.

Augusta has the rule under which anybody within 10 strokes of the lead at halfway qualifies for the final two rounds, but with Campbell six under par Montgomerie’s five over was not good enough.

The Scot, who spun his pitch into Rae’s Creek for a double bogey seven on the 13th and three-putted the 17th for bogey, has now missed five successive cuts and during the sequence he also made a second round exit from the Accenture World Match Play in California.

“You need a bit of fortune here and I had no fortune at all, but never mind. I didn’t putt very well – I never do here,” commented Montgomerie.

“I had three birdies, two of them tap-ins and a 10-footer. That’s not enough. You have to make more birdies than that. There you go.”

Also out of the Masters are Lee Westwood, Paul McGinley, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam, whose bogey at the 17th prevented him making it through for the first time since 2000.

Ireland’s Brian McElhinney failed to survive as well, but the British amateur champion will still be able to say that he was the leading amateur at the 2006 Masters.

Rounds of 80 and 75 were enough to give McElhinney that consolation prize by two from Edoardo Molinari, who last year became the first Italian to capture the American amateur crown.

Tee-off times in the third round of the Masters at Augusta National, Augusta, United States, today (USA unless stated, all times Irish):

1540 Jim Furyk

1550 Brandt Jobe, Thomas Bjorn (Den)

1600 Jose Maria Olazabal (Spa), Ted Purdy

1610 Angel Cabrera (Arg), Larry Mize

1620 Tim Herron, Mark Hensby (Aus)

1630 Luke Donald (Gbr), Robert Allenby (Aus)

1640 Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa), Rory Sabbatini (Rsa)

1650 Sergio Garcia (Aus), Adam Scott (Aus)

1700 Carl Pettersson (Swe), Stuart Appleby (Aus)

1710 Rod Pampling (Aus), Zach Johnson

1730 Shingo Katayama (Jpn), Davis Love

1740 Stewart Cink, Geoff Ogilvy (Aus)

1750 Justin Leonard, Ben Curtis

1800 Mike Weir (Can), Arron Oberholser

1810 Jason Bohn, Rich Beem

1820 Stephen Ames (Can), Scott Verplank

1830 Retief Goosen (Rsa), Tiger Woods

1850 Olin Browne, Ben Crenshaw

1900 Billy Mayfair, Padraig Harrington (Ire)

1910 David Howell (Gbr), Nick O’Hern (Aus)

1920 Ernie Els (Rsa), Tim Clark (Rsa)

1930 Darren Clarke (Gbr), Phil Mickelson

1940 Vijay Singh (Fij), Fred Couples

1950 Chad Campbell, Rocco Mediate