Nick Faldo had his
best round of the year on the PGA Tour, he
then wondered why Colin Montgomerie, who is setting one record after another
on the European Tour, hasn't joined the PGA Tour full time as Faldo has
done the past five years.
"I don't know what
he wants," Faldo said. "I'm surprised he hasn't done something different
as a challenge. But he likes to earn his fat checks each week, which is
no harm in that -- if you're motivated by that. A few are. Most of us go
for 10 claret jugs."
The one knock on
Montgomerie is that he has never won in America in 57 tournaments, and
he has never won a major championship.
The
36-year-old Scotsman already has set a European money record this year
with about $1.6 million, and he is well on his way to extending his record
by winning the money title for the seventh straight year.
Faldo compared Montgomerie's
situation to that of Jumbo Ozaki, who has won more than 100 times but only
once outside Japan, that coming at the 1972 New Zealand PGA.
"It's a bit like
a Jumbo Ozaki scenario," Faldo said. "He's great in his own back yard,
he's comfortable, happy. He knows he's only got to play half-decent and
he's going to be there. Even if he plays badly, he's the sort of guy who
turns around a good score the next day and gets himself into contention.
"He's in a comfort
zone, and I think he just enjoys it," Faldo said. "He goes out and wins
a couple of hundred thousand each week and goes home. I'd be comfortable
if I did that every week."
Montgomerie said
two weeks ago in the NEC Invitational that he didn't plan to ever play
the PGA Tour full time, especially with the new World Golf Championship
events. He already comes to America for three majors, plus a half-dozen
other tournaments to prepare for those majors.
Faldo joined the
PGA Tour twice, first in 1981 for six years. He won the British Open in
1987, 1990 and 1992, and was the last player to win back-to-back Masters,
in 1989-90. He resigned his membership, but rejoined the PGA Tour in 1995,
a year before he won The Masters for the third time.
