Montgomerie delighted with best Major start

Colin Montgomerie has crafted a dream start to the 2001 Open Championship at Royal Lytham, carding a first round of 65, 6-under-par to claim the clubhouse lead.

"I needed to get off to a decent start," said the delighted Scot after his round. "The first three or four holes were important for me, and it worked today. To start birdie, birdie was a real bonus."

An early starter at 9:34, it was a 20-foot putt at the 206-yard, par-three first that set the tone for Montgomerie's round.

"I had the pace of the greens very early on," added Montgomerie. "I was swinging the club well and putting well - the first putt of an Open is very important and that went in - so it was good today, very good."

A nine-iron to six feet on the second enabled the Scot to go two-under-par, and following a bogey at the par-three fifth, he holed a chip on the sixth for eagle.

Further birdies on the eighth and ninth holes gave Montgomerie a front-nine
of 30, five-under-par. A birdie at the 10th took the seven-time European Order of Merit champion to six-under-par, and following his second and final bogey at the long par-four 14th, Montgomerie finished his round in the same fashion with which he began, with with an excellent three on the par-four last.

The Lytham crowd could not get enough.

"To get ahead like that and then have a real bonus at the 18th was good," acknowledged the golfer who has been labelled the best in the world not to
have won a major, "and the support I had out there was fantastic.

"You can't not notice the Open Championship crowds. They were vast today.
The noise when I holed that putt at 18 was quite fantastic. Let us hope they will be cheering as much the rest of the week."

Having never scored better than 70 in the first round of a major, Montgomerie has found himself in unchartered territory.

"It has always been catch-up in the past and it has not worked," admitted the Ryder Cup stalwart. "Now I seem to be in the lead the whole psyche of the Championship changes for me. The one thing I don't do is defend anything because there is nothing really to defend at this stage. I have to go out and play the way I did today."

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