With a record of missed cuts in his last four Masters and a best finish of tied eighth in a total of 15 starts, you might imagine that Colin Montgomerie would react to failing to make the field for next week�s showdown at Augusta National with a shrug of resignation and a pledge to improve his game for 2009.
With a record of missed cuts in his last four Masters and a best finish of tied eighth in a total of 15 starts, you might imagine that Colin Montgomerie would react to failing to make the field for next week's showdown at Augusta National with a shrug of resignation and a pledge to improve his game for 2009.
It might even be a blessing in disguise that a player of such huge worldwide standing has missed out. His form has dipped this year to the point where he is languishing at world No.75. After all, his likely fate of one more weekend off was hardly going to build his confidence.
Ah, but you don't get to where Scotland's 44-year-old international man of mystery is by accepting such a fate so easily. Eight European No.1 crowns, a Ryder Cup record second to only Nick Faldo and 40 victories worldwide are testament to a rare talent, a burning desire and a supreme single-mindedness.
Vibrant, gracious and generous away from golf, grumpy and petulant on it when things are not going his way, failing to make the field for the first major championship of the season that has become part of his annual routine was never going to be easy to accept.
He is hurting and it is against this background he has had a pop at Augusta National for inviting three international players with a lower ranking than him.
Prayad Marksaeng of Thailand (No.93), Liang Wen-chong of China (111) and Jeev Milkha Singh of India (80) were asked to play quite openly for commercial television reasons and, as chairman Billy Payne pointed out, to grow golf worldwide using the Masters brand.
Montgomerie regards that as unfair. "I am not the only one who feels that way and not just because I am not in. In or not, I'd be saying the same thing. It is a strange criterion to pick a major field," he said.
The fact remains that it is only he who is saying it, and not 24 other players ranked higher than him who are also not in the field, among them younger Britons, Welshman Bradley Dredge and Irishman Graeme McDowell.
The timing of Montgomerie's outburst suggests there are sour grapes, and the remarks come just days after failing to make the grade. That is despite an opportunity to meet the Masters criteria by playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational to which he was, ahem, invited.
No-one is saying the Masters system is perfect - the presence of 72-year-old Gary Player in this year's field is far more ridiculous than the Asian trio.
Neither are the criteria at the other three majors beyond question. The Open and US Open exempt amateurs and former champions, and club professionals litter the field at the US PGA.
Montgomerie, as it happens, has met the criteria for the other three by finishing No.12 in Europe last year, giving him three more chances at golf's top table to disprove what Monty-watchers are increasingly thinking - that he is spent as a force.
His European ranking is not good enough, however, for the limited-field Masters and Montgomerie may yet wish he had had the good grace and dignity to accept that quietly and turn his mind instead to his wedding two weeks on Saturday at Loch Lomond.
