Montgomerie Wards Off Field

By THOMAS BONK

June 13, 1997 12 AM PT

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

BETHESDA, Md. — His face is the color of a ripe tomato. And now that he has given up dieting, it appears as though he is hiding potatoes in his shirt.

It’s quite a portrait, all right, when Colin Montgomerie hits the golf course. With red hair flying, red face squinting, the burly Scot may look like a refugee from the salad bar, but on the first day of the U.S. Open he looked more like somebody intent on getting his first helping of a major championship.

The 33-year-old from Glasgow threw a five-under-par 65 at Congressional Country Club in the early afternoon, then spent the rest of Thursday waiting for someone to catch him. Nobody did.

Steve Stricker and Hal Sutton came close. They are one shot back after beginning with 66s on the demanding 7,213-yard layout.

Tom Lehman and Mark McNulty were next at 67 and felt fortunate, mostly because they didn’t have the same experience as Tiger Woods.

As far as bids for a Grand Slam go, Woods created a bit of a problem for himself. After shooting a 74, Woods is nine shots off the lead. If he is going to add a U.S. Open title to the one he got at the Masters, it would equal Jack Fleck’s 1955 Open record for a comeback.

“He hit a couple of bad shots like everybody else does,” Lehman said.

Right now, Woods and the other players are looking up at Montgomerie.

It was as close to a virtuoso performance as Montgomerie could recall on his behalf.

“This is possibly the best round of golf I’ve ever put together in a major,” he said.

It certainly looked like it, especially during a seven-hole stretch from No. 7 through No. 13 when he collected five birdies in the most dominating streak of the day.

He birdied the par-three seventh with a three-footer, then birdied the 607-yard ninth when he knocked a sand wedge to six feet and made the putt.

There was more. He birdied the 10th when he sent a four-iron to 10 feet and made it and the 11th when his pitching wedge put the ball to 15 feet, where he rolled in another putt.

Proving he also could make the short ones, Montgomerie put in a four-footer at 13.

“Monty played like he was playing a different golf course,” Nick Price said.

He was six under when he birdied the 16th, but found a bunker at 17 and made a bogey. The only excitement at the 18th was when a snake slithered out of the water just as Montgomerie was preparing to putt.

When asked if he had been caught in a reptilian distraction, Montgomerie shook his head.

“These things happen,” he said.

Being philosophical is something Montgomerie has learned at the U.S. Open.

This Scot and this country’s Open championship have held some sort of a strange semi-attraction for a while.

In the 1992 Open at Pebble Beach, Montgomerie finished 2 1/2 hours before the last two groups and saw Tom Kite beat him. Montgomerie finished third.

It got worse in the 1994 Open at Oakmont. That time, in the broiling sun, a flushed Montgomerie sweated his way into a three-way, 18-hole playoff on Monday with Ernie Els and Loren Roberts only to shoot a 78 and watch Els win.

After two such near-misses in the Open, you might think Montgomerie is keeping score, but he isn’t.

“No tournament owes me anything,” said Montgomerie, who also lost a playoff to Steve Elkington in the 1995 PGA at Riviera. “I have to go out and earn it. Yes, I have been close a couple of times at this event, but it doesn’t owe me anything.”

You can’t fault Sutton for feeling any differently about golf in general. The PGA champion at 25 in 1983, Sutton has won only once since 1987, so last month he turned to Jackie Burke Jr. for some advice that has helped.

It was Burke, the 1956 Masters champion, who counseled Elkington before the 1995 PGA. Sutton said Burke told him not to worry what others said.

“It’s really hard when people are telling you how good they think you should be all the time,” Sutton said. “It’s really hard to live up to everybody else’s expectations.”

As for expectations, some of the pretournament favorites got off to a wobbly start. Nick Faldo finished with a two-over 72 and the quartet of Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, Elkington and Greg Norman had matching 75s.

Lehman, who tied for second with Davis Love III in last year’s Open at Oakland Hills, birdied the 15th and the 16th with putts of 18 feet.

“The big thing is not to blow yourself out of the tournament,” he said.

“Let’s be serious. You have to play very well to shoot under par and you can’t make a lot of mistakes--and it’s impossible to play four rounds the way Monty played today. There’s just no way possible.”

He’s right, isn’t he? Maybe, but at least the first round is on Montgomerie.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LEADERS

Colin Montgomerie: 65 -5

Hal Sutton: 66 -4

Steve Stricker: 66 -4

Mark McNulty: 67 -3

Tom Lehman: 67 -3

Hideki Kase: 68 -2

Dave Schreyer: 68 -2

Jeff Sluman: 69 -1

Justin Leonard: 69 -1