ATTENDANCE AT the tour flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth should be mandatory for members according to three-time winner and seven-time Order of Merit champion Colin Montgomerie.
Monty believes that World No 1 Rory McIlroy should be obliged to come to the event this May, with twice-champion Luke Donald having announced his commitment to go for a third successive win last week.
“We should make sure that Rory is there it’s vital, you have to have him for the PGA and we have to encourage all our top players to come back,” said Monty, speaking as guest of honour at the PGA of Scotland annual lunch in Glasgow.
“We are lucky that Luke Donald will come back as he’s going for three-in-a-row and I’m sure Westwood will come back and support.
“But, the main guy is Rory McIlroy, especially if he goes and wins the Masters beforehand and that’s maybe odds-on by now. It should be mandatory he is there.”
Meanwhile, Montgomerie’s own career may be taking a different path due to his election to the World Golf Hall of Fame earlier this week, with an exemption to the Champions Tour coming to all members.
“I didn’t quite understand that but, yes, I get automatic entry. As you near 50, options decrease in life but in golf, it’s different.
“I’m still exempt on the European Tour and now I’ve got two more tours to play on, the European Seniors Tour and now the American Champions Tour. But I’ve gone from one tour to, in June, three Tours and at 50 years old that’s not bad!
“I think I’ll do a bit of both, I will still play on my favourite events on the European Tour the French Open, the Scottish Open, the Dunhill, the Johnnie Walker that type of thing.”
He believes his decision will be made in the first half of the season before his 50th birthday.
“The first six months of this year (2013) will be in preparation for what happens in the last six months,” he continued.
“I turn 50 in June and I’m looking forward to getting that feeling, that feeling I used to have on the first tee of a European Tour event, where I believed I could win.
“If I’m being honest, I don’t do that now on the first tee of a European Tour event. If everything goes brilliantly well and I have 25 putts a round, hit most fairways and greens, yes, I could win a European Tour event. Finishing just four behind at the Johnnie Walker has given me heart to go out this season. I’m looking forward to seeing where I am.”
Meanwhile, Monty will continue as a Sky Sports commentator at three of the majors this season, but admitted that he’d been told to tone down comments on Tiger Woods during a stint at the PGA Cham-pionship last year.
“It was when he had that tussle with a cactus at Kiawah Island and he went down as if he was shot,” he recalled. “I said on commentary that it looked like he had been tackled by the former Leeds defender Norman Hunter, I’d forgot I was getting a bit old and people wouldn’t know who Norman Hunter was.
“I’m there to give an opinion and kept talking about it but the producer was on my earpiece that time telling me to calm down and go easy on him.”
The PGA also honoured veteran Scottish TV commentator and golf writer Renton Laidlaw with their Lifetime Achievement Award at their lunch, held at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow.
Renton, who first covered the Open Championship as far back as 1959, was born in Dundee and still lives nearby in Drumoig. After many distinguished years in journalism with newspapers, the BBC and ITV, he now works as a lead commentator for The Golf Channel’s European Tour coverage.
stscott@thecourier.co.uk