Monty rolls into Oakmont hoping to contend again

After several near-misses, Colin Montgomerie let his best chance to claim a major slip through his fingers last year at Winged Foot. He's tried to put that out of his mind, and is hoping his window of opportunity has yet to close.

OAKMONT, Pa. (PA) -- The memories of 12 months ago and 13 years ago are sure to come crashing into Colin Montgomerie's head at this year's U.S. Open.

Montgomerie will be back at Oakmont for the first time since he wilted to a 78 in a playoff for the title played in ferocious heat in 1994.

And he will return there, of course, trying to make amends for the unforgettable -- much though he might prefer to forget it -- last-hole double bogey that crushed his dream of finally winning a major at Winged Foot last year.

The former remains arguably the most disappointing round of his long career. The latter is most certainly the one hole he would choose to play again given the chance.

"I will think about it until I win one," he commented. "It could have been me. It should have been me. On other occasions I've been runner-up, the door has been closed on me, but I closed it on myself at Winged Foot."

Montgomerie is clinging to the belief that there will be at least one more opportunity.

"Every round of golf you learn. I learnt from the Open at St. Andrews (in 2005, when he was runner-up to Tiger Woods) and from Winged Foot, and hopefully when I am in that position again I will take something from those experiences," he said. "I'm supposed to be the best player not to win a major and I don't mind that at all -- it's better than being the second-best player.

"I see myself being in contention at least once this season and I hope one day that door will open," he added. "I've been second (in a major) in 2005 and 2006. It would be foolish not to put me on a list of contenders. There's no reason why it can't continue."

Except age, of course.

Montgomerie will be 44 on June 23, and only seven golfers -- Old Tom Morris, Jerry Barber, Roberto de Vicenzo, Julius Boros, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus and Hale Irwin -- have ever lifted a major after celebrating that particular birthday.

But there are two other names Montgomerie should keep in mind when he pitches up in Pittsburgh.

It was written, correctly, that when he finished second to Geoff Ogilvy last year it made him the only player in golf history to have five second places in majors without a win. However, Craig Wood and Ben Crenshaw were also in that position -- and then broke through to win. Not just once, either.

Wood was second at the 1933 Open, 1934 and 1935 Masters, 1934 PGA Championship and 1939 U.S. Open (four of them after playoffs), but just before the Americans entered the Second World War he captured the 1941 Masters and then two months later won the U.S. Open as well.

For Crenshaw, the 1976 Masters, 1978 and 1979 Opens, 1979 PGA Championship and 1983 Masters ended with him as runner-up. He had 11 other top-10 finishes as well, but back at Augusta in 1984 he came from two behind fellow Texan Tom Kite to beat Tom Watson by two.

And even more memorably, he won there again in 1995 just a few days after the death of his friend and mentor Harvey Penick.

Montgomerie's near-misses began on his U.S. Open debut at Pebble Beach in 1992, when a brilliant closing 70 in windswept conditions had him anointed as champion by Jack Nicklaus no less, only for Kite and Jeff Sluman to relegate him to third.

Two years later at Oakmont, a spectacular second-round 65 put him in the lead, but he followed it with a 73 and did well on the final day to force himself into the 18-hole playoff against Ernie Els (only 24 at the time) and Loren Roberts.

What first staggered people when the trio arrived the following morning was that Montgomerie chose a dark-colored Black Watch tartan shirt in conditions so oppressive that they resembled a furnace.

It later emerged it was the only clean one he had left. And if he had taken the obvious solution to that and bought another, of course, there would have been none of his sponsors’ logos on it.

By the time he had double-bogeyed the second and third holes, he already looked frazzled. By the time he completed his 78, he was a bystander. Els and Roberts managed only 74s, but they went on into second death and Els grabbed his first major at the second extra hole.

"Possibly the shirt was the wrong color," said Montgomerie later. "But it was hot, hot, hot. It would have been hot in any shirt. It would have been hot in no shirt."

He vowed then to keep trying and he is still vowing that.

"You wonder sometimes why you put yourself through this," he said before leaving Winged Foot last year following that harrowing 6 from the middle of the last fairway. "At my age I've got to think positively. I look forward to coming back here again next year and try another U.S. Open disaster!

"This is the first time I've really messed up. Other chances I've had other players have done very well (Steve Elkington sank a 25-foot playoff birdie putt in the 1995 PGA Championship and Els beat him by one at the 1997 U.S. Open)," he added. "You're entitled to a couple of mess-ups along the way."

Can he, though, even get himself into a position to mess up or win?

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