While the world of golf
fell admiringly at his feet, Tiger Woods lavished praise of his
own on Colin Montgomerie and said the Briton would be a great
addition to the U.S.Tour.
Woods set new standards by winning the Valderrama World
Championship on Sunday for his fourth U.S. Tour win on the trot,
his eighth victory in 11 starts and his ninth all year, while
Montgomerie won a battle of his own.
He became European number one for the seventh successive
year even though it was more a reward for his six victories
during the year than for his 16th and 20th-place finishes in the
Volvo Masters and Valderrama events over the last eight days.
"For him to have won seven in as row is just incredible,"
said Woods, who has now won two in three years as a pro on the
U.S.Tour.
"It's truly amazing how consistently he has played. In order
to be at the top of the money list you have to play well and you
have to be consistent.
"You can't have great weeks and then have terrible weeks and
miss a whole bunch of cuts and finish at the bottom if you do
make the cut," Woods added.
"Your non-victory weeks have to be at the worst in the top
10. He's been able to do that year in and year out,"
Montgomerie has not finished outside the top 20 in 16
tournaments in Europe this year and only in one other event ,
the European TPC, did he finish as low as 20th.
"Obviously he would add greatly to our tour if he came over
to the States and played full time," Woods said. "It would only
enhance our Tour and make it even more tough to win."
But he did not see that it would create a personal rivalry
between them if Montgomerie did so.
"That's not the way we play. These are stroke play events.
I'm not looking to beat Colin, he's not looking to beat me.
"We're just trying to get ourselves in position to win."
Montgomerie, however, seems further away than ever from
joining the U.S.Tour full time despite suggestions that it would
advance his career to do so.
The world number three announced some weeks ago that he
planned to play less in the United States next year so that he
could be at home more with his wife and their three young
children.
Both he and Woods set money-winning records on their
respective Tours this year. Montgomerie finished with 1,302,057
pounds ($2.11 million), an improvement on his previous best of
993,077 pounds set last year.
Woods shattered the previous mark of $2,591,031 set by David
Duval in 1998. His second $1 million prize of the year from the
three new world championship tournaments boosted his winnings to
a massive $6,616,585.
That is about a million more than Jack Nicklaus won in his
entire U.S.Tour career.
