Wednesday 26 July 2017 18:04, UK
Colin Montgomerie is prepared for a "massive" physical and mental challenge at this week's Senior Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl.
The eight-time European No 1 won the race for second at the famous Welsh links when the Senior Open was last staged there in 2014, although he was a distant runner-up as Bernhard Langer cruised to a remarkable 13-shot victory.
Montgomerie is now back close to full fitness after suffering torn ankle ligaments almost four months ago, and he believes the course will play very differently to the hard, fast and dry conditions which Langer tamed so impressively and thinks it could be a harder test than The Open field faced on Friday at Royal Birkdale.
"It's a massive challenge for everybody, both physically and mentally - more mentally," said the Scot. "Starting off with a hole that is dead into the wind, it will be a driver, three-iron or driver three-wood to start with, and that's downhill. Awful challenge that hole, to start with.
"And then you have the side, probably left-to-right wind on two, three and four ... even thinking about it is daunting. This will be a real, real challenge. Yes, it was windy on Friday at The Open, but this course is more exposed than Birkdale, which tends to play into the hills, as opposed to this being on top. The effects will be more dramatic here in that wind.
"But you've got to accept that it's the winning score that counts. It's not how many under par you are, you know you've got to score less than everybody else, and if that's four 74s, it's four 74s, but you've beaten the rest of them.
"So you've just got to accept that you are going to make mistakes, and obviously that if you make mistakes, well, everyone else is doing the same thing, and it's sometimes difficult to accept that."
Langer was in a class of his own in 2014, winning on 18 under when only four other players managed to finish under par, and Montgomerie compared his performance to Tiger Woods' record-breaking wins at the US Open and The Open in his golden 2000 season.
"I think that was one of the greatest victories in the modern golfing era," Montgomerie added. "We talk about Tiger's 15-shot win at the US Open in 2000 followed by winning by eight at St Andrews, and they were two phenomenal performances. But I would put Bernhard Langer's performance here in 2014 right up there with them.
"It was incredible, to beat the field by more than three shots per round, every round, doesn't happen very often at all, and hasn't happened for 14 years since Tiger did that at the US Open. It was a phenomenal performance and something he'll look back on I hope over his lifetime and think that was the best performance he had ever put together.
"I was delighted to beat the rest into second place, as you say, one of the few players to be under par, and that shows the strength of this course. Even as bouncy and hard and as hard as the course was playing, only five of us managed to be under par."
