The Bridesmaid

Monty does have this habit of putting his foot in it – of that there is no doubt. Only last year, he made the mistake of putting himself forward for a second stint at the Ryder Cup captaincy when he would have done better to keep a dignified silence and see if they, the committee, came to him. After all, there was every reason to suppose that they might. He had done a first-class job in every respect in winning at Celtic Manor in 2010 and it would have been madness not to take him into account when they were pondering on who would be best for Gleneagles, a venue which is no more than 10 minutes away from his home.

In the event, the mere fact that he had indicated that he was the man for the job seemed to galvanise the minds of those who felt that the role should not be hogged by one individual. Not at a time when there were too many players with sound captaincy credentials for too few Ryder Cups. Monty could not have been more generous when the post was given to Paul McGinley but the coverage of events had not been the best from his point of view.

Going back to the vexed question of how he qualified for the Hall of Fame without winning a major, how close did he get in those aforementioned US Opens?

Back in 1992, Jack Nicklaus actually congratulated him both to his face and on TV for being the first Briton to capture the title in 22 years. (Jacklin won his US Open in 1970). Montgomerie had posted a last-round 70 for an aggregate of 288 which, given the high winds at Pebble Beach, looked like an unassailable tally. Then came Tom Kite and Jeff Sluman, playing together and involved in an skirmish so intense that the elements were only of secondary import. Both men overtook the luckless Monty, with Kite finishing first and Sluman second.

"I don’t," Montgomerie would say later, "harbour any ill will towards Nicklaus for what he said. I was pretty damned positive that I had won and thousands of others shared that view."