Monty cheered by fine 65

Scot firing in France with low third round

Last updated: 4th July 2009   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Monty cheered by fine 65

Monty: Driving to blame

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Colin Montgomerie once again produced his best form at the French Open when he posted a 65 to take the early clubhouse lead after three rounds.

The 45-year-old just made the cut despite a triple-bogey seven on Friday and he responded with his his joint-best round of the year on a course where he finished second 12 months ago.

The Scot has not enjoyed a top-10 finish in the intervening period but blamed his errant driving on a slump that has seen his world ranking and European points position slump to their lowest ebb.

"Six under sounds great but the only thing about that was the lack of bogeys and I've been making far, far too many mistakes," he said after holing his approach to the sixth for an eagle, adding four further birdies.

"Yesterday was a few birdies intermingled with a load of crazy mistakes and it's stopping the errors that's key, and it starts from the fairway.

"I haven't been hitting the fairways for the last year really and that's why I've not had a top-10 for a year and it comes from the first shot of the hole.

"If I'm not finding the fairways I can't use my strength, which is my iron shots, to their full potential.

"Okay im not as long as I used to be but to hit a four-iron 204 yards stiff and just tap it in - that's what I used to do, but it was from the fairway.

"If I hit the fairways I can score, but if I don't, I can't."