Go Monty go

Monty Zoomer the fourth estate will chorus in celebration should Europe regain the Ryder Cup from the Americans at Celtic Manor in the autumn of next year. But if those damned Yankees somehow manage to keep their pesky paws on golf’s most famous glittering team bauble, it will be Monty Bloomer.

And all because the Europe players’ tournament committee have got it right in naming Colin Montgomerie as their next captain for the Ryder Cup collision in Wales in 2010.

Monty has already stated his avowed aim to get the cup back. Barely had his first day elapsed when he reminded the Americans that their victory last autumn on the Valhalla circuit only afforded them the opportunity to “loan” the Ryder Cup.

Said the new captain: “My message to my players is very easy – we go and claim back the Ryder Cup.”

While that pledge was delivered in the unmistakeable burr that bears no relationship to his Glasgow birthplace – the former eight-time European Order of Merit winner sounds more like a chartered surveyor than someone surveying an exalted place in golfing folklore, let alone a Glaswegian – it was unequivocal in its stance. Monty wants the trophy back. And if anyone is a winner in Ryder Cup heritage it is the 45-year-old Scot.

He has played in no fewer than eight Ryder Cup teams, of which a high-five were victorious. Monty has never lost a singles match in any he has played and is second only to Nick Faldo, his predecessor as Ryder Cup captain, in the number of points amassed by a European in the entire illustrious history of the Ryder Cup.

True, some may say that Faldo, no less a six-time Major winner as Britain’s most successful golfer, also boasted all the right qualifications when he led the Europe team.

Yet four months ago the fine line towards approach and accuracy was never genuinely straddled so that the Faldo stewardship – plotting a fourth European triumph on the spin – was rewarded with the vile bile of defeat at Valhalla. Faldo too was the choice of most pundits in the build-up to last year’s bid to leave the Americans pot-less yet again.

Yet for all that overwhelming evidence, Faldo’s candidature always had a potentially flawed look to it, even though no one could argue with the captain’s credentials.

Given the fact Monty too has had his share of run-ins with the media, his selection as captain nevertheless ticks all the boxes in every conceivable way.

And I would venture he has even a greater incentive for ramming another Ryder Cup triumph down the throats of the “you’re the man” brigade from across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Scotsman would never admit it I am sure, but all those years on the American circuit when an inability to land a Major during a host of most promising positions led to criticism of him being a choker will have fuelled the desire to inspire the ultimate golfing team conquest.

And that’s not even mentioning the cruel “Mrs Doubtfire” jibes aimed at Montgomerie during his spats with the American watching public.

Over the next 18 months or so I am certain Montgomerie will be a model of Ryder Cup reserve and dignity befitting the demands of his role as captain of a European team whose ranks are swelling the top 30 of the world ratings.

But inwardly, it will surely churn over in the Monty psyche that – in Kevin Keeganesque style – he would love it if he could send the Yanks back home with their tail between their legs and the Ryder Cup sitting proudly on the Celtic Manor mantel-piece. Go Monty go.

SOMETIMES you wonder just who answers a plethora of surveys in sport.

The latest this week comes from the bizarrely-named Barclays Spaces for Sports which produced the staggering conclusion that Wembley is the best sporting venue in the world.

Wembley polled 28 per cent of British votes, more than double of the next best, Wimbledon’s All-England Club, with Formula One’s Monaco street circuit third.

Has no-one ever heard of the Maracana, the Sydney Cricket Ground, Flushing Meadows, China’s Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium, or the daddy of them all, Madison Square Garden?