Scot on Wrong Side of the Pond to Have Open Crowd on His Side

BETHESDA, Md. —  They don’t rip him to his red face, because they are either too timid or polite.

But walk the Congressional Country Club course with Colin Montgomerie and you can hear the whispers.

“It looks like he has a clown’s nose.”

“There’s that big loudmouth.”

In this confusing U.S. Open, with the field swept into a rain-soaked purgatory where nobody knows who is winning or losing, only one thing is certain:

When the leaders begin the final round in twosomes this afternoon, Montgomerie will be very much alone.

Jeff Maggert is the good ol’ boy. Tom Lehman is the resilient Midwesterner.

Montgomerie is the lumpy, curly-haired Scot with a voice that creaks and a body that jiggles.

It will be American gladiators against Mrs. Doubtfire, as Montgomerie is sometimes called.

Just who do you think this nation’s capital will be hoping wins this nation’s golf championship?

Chances are, its citizens will not be cheering for the man frustrated in his attempt to buy a new, dry shirt during Saturday’s rain delay because the pro shop did not have his size.

“He looks chubbier on TV.”

“Go back to Scotland.”

By shooting three under par for 16 holes Saturday, Montgomerie is setting himself up for the sort of hostility faced by Lehman early in the last round of last year’s British Open.

If he becomes the first European in 27 years to conquer the Open, he will have felt like he rowed the Atlantic to do it.

“Everybody here is going to want the Americans to win, they are going to be cheering for them, we know that,” said Alastair McLean, Montgomerie’s caddie for the last six years.

You know it too.

When Montgomerie appears on TV haughtily marching down the fairway with his shirttail hanging out and his face on fire, an eccentric 210-pound monarch without a country, it could be enough to make you cheer for the guy in the Dockers cap.

That would be Lehman, who “trails” low-man Maggert by one stroke and “leads” Montgomerie by one stroke, even though none of them has played the same number of holes.

“Big jerk.”

“Go, U.S.A.”

Montgomerie has a better game to beat this course than either of his top two opponents, what with his straight drives and unruffled putting.

Fans crowding the seventh green Saturday long will remember how he took what felt like an hour to set up a 20-foot, curving, downhill putt for birdie.

At one point, he aimed his putt 30 feet to the left of the hole, then backed off and shook his head at the silliness of it all.

When he finally did strike the ball, he wasn’t aiming anywhere near the hole. But the putt was little more than a shove, and it curved like a parabola, into the cup.

Montgomerie turned to the cheering crowd and stuck out his hands with an amazed look.

As the world’s fifth-ranked golfer, and leading money winner who is not part of the PGA Tour, he has felt this is the perfect time and tournament for his first major victory.

“Coming in, he knew the course was set up just right,” McLean said. “He really thought this could be the one. If he keeps playing like this on Sunday, it could be.”

Fans also will remember, however, that Montgomerie glared at them with every little noise, twisted his head at seemingly every gallery movement, and seemed constantly on the verge of breaking a club over one of his substantial legs.

“He does wear his heart on his sleeve,” his wife, Eimear, said.

When he looks into the crowd, as he did often Saturday, he is looking for Eimear. Her presence seems to calm him, something he needs about every other round, as evidenced this weekend.

He shot a five-under par 65 to lead after one day, then fell back into the pack with a six-over 76 on Friday.

It was late in that second round that he sought her help when he felt dizzy. His weight gives him problems in the heat. He asked if she could find a first-aid tent.

He soon steadied himself, enough to stalk toward the gallery and bellow at some rowdy fans.

“Like any golfer, he hears things, particularly when he is playing poorly,” McLean said.

As far as Montgomerie could hear, the crowd was nicer Saturday.

“I think they realized what they had done, and were trying to make up for it,” McLean said.

But Montgomerie was just as intense. He rushed off the course when play was called because of darkness and refused to speak to the media.

“He is very determined,” Eimear said. “He really wants to make this a good weekend.”

With a little luck and few a more roller coaster putts today, it could be.

But for this stranger in a land that will seem very foreign by late afternoon today, it will not have been an easy one.