Colin Montgomerie weighs in on Scheffler's rant, Rory's motivation and LIV Golf

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PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Sitting comfortably in a hospitality tent at Royal Portrush, Colin Montgomerie explained how in this recent period away from playing the game of golf, he enjoys working around the house. Across from the golfer, his wife raised an eyebrow.

“I do my yard, my backyard, as you would call it. Garden,” he said. “I like cutting the grass, it’s quite therapeutic.”

Sarah Taylor, who used to manage the golfer, sat on a nearby couch with an expression that clearly questioned her husband’s stated passion for yardwork.

More on Monty’s time away from golf shortly.

With so much going on in the sport, there was plenty to ask the eight-time European Order of Merit winner.

During his illustrious playing career around the world, Montgomerie didn’t always come across as the most satisfied golfer. Considering that, the 62-year-old Scotsman seemed perfect to discuss Scottie Scheffler’s comments ahead of this week’s Open Championship, where the world’s best golfer said he finds professional sports to be an unfulfilling life, and that he sometimes questions the point of it all.

Montgomerie wasn’t completely surprised.

“Once you’ve reached a certain height in anything there is only one place to go, and unfortunately it’s down,” Montgomerie told the Toronto Sun in a wide-ranging interview. “You can’t stay there forever. I can understand to an extent what he was trying to say.”

“Like, ‘Where do I go from here, I’ve almost done it all already,’ I mean 16 wins in four years including three majors? That’s incredible. So, where do you go apart from down? It was very honest. Normally nowadays, they get into these press conferences and say nothing. At least he was honest and said how he feels. He’s putting his family first which is great, and good luck to him.”

After considering the spot Scheffler finds himself in this week at Royal Portrush, right back in the hunt, Montgomerie floated an alternative theory.

“Is this a way of taking the pressure off possibly?” he asked of Scheffler’s speech. “Is this a way of saying, ‘I don’t really care.’ You never know, but it’s working.”

Noticing Brian Harman’s name atop the leaderboard on the television on the wall, and imagining the groans from these fans at the thought of the American with a passion for hunting winning their cherished Jug yet again, we talked about the diminutive left-hander. And whether it’s fair to have a crowd against you in a sport such as golf, something Monty has had some experience with.

“He’s obviously become a bit of a links expert suddenly from really nowhere,” he said of Harman. “I’ll tell you what he does do, he putts helluva well. But I think if you’re not Rory McIlroy here, you feel everyone is against you as a player. It’s an odd sort of thing.”

“Because we are in Northern Ireland, it’s harder for the English, Scottish or Welsh to get here so you get a really local audience. And Rory’s a god here. This Loch Lomond Whiskeys tent is fairly empty right now, but at three o’clock when he’s finished, it sure won’t be. They will all be coming in after Rory’s done.”

As with every discussion in Portrush this week, the conversation had made its way to McIlroy. It’s hard not to wonder what the Northern Irish superstar thought of Scheffler’s remarks. After all, Rory has been going through a motivational problem of his own since accomplishing his childhood dream of winning the career grand slam in April at the Masters.

“It was Rory’s ultimate dream to get the four, and he spent 40 majors trying to finish it,” Montgomerie said. “And everyone was saying now the flood gates will open once he’s done this, and he’ll win everything. Hang on.”

“One, it’s not that easy. Two, I think what happened to him over the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open was he thought, ‘God, hang on a minute. Do I have to keep doing this? Do I have to keep all this up?’ I think this was a good one for him at Portrush, a great place to try to get back on the rails again.”

As for how Rory must have felt standing on the first tee at Portrush on Thursday, six years after hitting his tee shot out of bounds in front of a country of worshippers?

“Very strange feeling,” he said. “He made a complete hash of it six years ago. Doesn’t matter who you are, he was thinking about it. There’s no question it was in his head. That iron he hit wasn’t flying in the air very much.”

It’s been nearly a year since reports came out that Montgomerie was having health issues and would be stepping away from the Champions Tour for a time.

“I haven’t been very well, I’ve had a bad year health-wise. So what do I do when I’m not golfing? Well, three children and two grandchildren now, that’s good. The grandchildren are becoming people now, they’re not babies anymore they are children. I just love being at home. After 40 years of travel, where do you want to be? Sleeping in my own bed, to be honest.”

Monty and Sarah live in Sunningdale, England, where the golfer keeps a close eye on the game he loves. His favourite current player is Ludvig Aberg from Sweden.

“I like him. He gets on with,” Montgomerie said. “He’s European, but fine. I like the attitude I like the way he swings the club, he’s a modern player. He makes a few too many mistakes at the moment, but his good is as good as anyone’s.”

His attention to the game is yet to extend to LIV Golf, where a number of his former rivals are presently plying their trade.

“Not that I’m not interested, I just can’t find it, it’s not readily available,” he said if LIV, “These people have disappeared off the screen. I mean: Henrik Stenson, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter, the guys I used to play with. Lee Westwood? I have no idea how they’ve finished or what they’re doing or whatever. It’s crazy and a shame.

“It’s very important the game comes back together. If this Saudi Arabian fund is what they say it is and they want to support golf, well let’s bring it back together and use that money in a more positive way. What I’m trying to say is give opportunity to others and not just the wealthy get wealthier, let’s use it for grassroots golf in places like India and China and Indonesia, wherever. The world’s great populations. The sooner we come back together the better for everybody.”

Apart from having trouble finding LIV broadcasts, like many fans, Montgomerie seems to struggle with the questionable competitive spirit on LIV.

“When I think of LIV, I think what’s the point? I mean, why? This is something here to be champion golfer of the year, it’s something. It’s tradition,” he said.

One thing many of the topics we had covered had in common was money, and how it’s changed golf and possibly changed an athlete’s motivation in all professional sports. Fulfillment and job satisfaction were much less of a topic in the past when generational wealth wasn’t a reality for every player.

“We earned a lot of money but it wasn’t retirement money in a year. What’s happened now is that Scottie Scheffler is earning $50-60 million in a year and that’s retirement money. After one good year you are set,” he said.

“The 90s was my era. What was I doing it for? I had three children born in that time and the lifestyle was improving and I wanted to continue to improve it for the family. So I guess, yes, it was for the money. But now all these guys are making a lot more money than we ever made. Everything has changed in sports.”

Montgomerie said he doesn’t blame players for leaving for LIV, although he thinks it’s a bit more of a peculiar choice for young players trying to make their way in the game.

“But the Westwoods, Poulters and McDowells were plateauing at best and I can’t blame them at all,” he said. “If someone had come to myself it would have been a very difficult decision. Loyalty is one thing but the mighty dollar is another. It’s life-changing money.”

As a golfer who has played all over the world, we closed by asking him, if he had just one round of golf left, where would he play it?

“I’d play at my home course at Sunningdale in England,” he said. “It’s a fabulous walk whether you’re playing golf, or walking your dogs and forgetting about the golf.”