Montgomerie may regret Ryder Cup comments

The Americans understand that for all the event's charm, professional golf will always essentially be a man-on-man battle

If god is in a mischievous mood come Saturday night we cannot doubt the identity of at least one pairing for the final day of Ryder Cup action: C Montgomerie of Europe versus T Woods of the United States will surely leap out of the envelopes of captains Sam Torrance and Curtis Strange. Someone will then have to decide if a call should go in to the League Against Cruel Sports.

The Tiger has many sterling qualities but not high among them is compassion for anyone he suspects of showing less than proper respect, which not for the first time could be something of a problem for Monty if the great young man took the trouble to flick through his morning papers yesterday.

There he would have seen that Montgomery had again blundered, quite how intentionally it is hard to be sure, into another Woods controversy.

There is a lengthening list of the foolhardy who have made this mistake. It is headed by Montgomerie and includes Fuzzy Zoeller, the former Masters champion, and Butch Harmon, the celebrated coach. Both Americans strayed carelessly into the prickly zone of Woods' pride, Zoeller for suggesting that the new champion put on a menu for his celebration dinner at Augusta that might have been picked up in Uncle Tom's Cabin; Harmon for telling the world on one too many occasion that arguably the best player golf has ever seen was never more than one call away from an instant solution to all problems of technique and psychology.

Zoeller paid with a grovelling apology, Harmon with the loss of his most bankable client.

Monty's price for being dragged into the latest Woods row, surrounding the American's reluctance to attend the ceremonial dinner at The Belfry this week, will no doubt be exacted sooner or later on the course. How justly, though, is maybe another matter.

While Montgomerie's latest comments came under the rather provocative headline "Stop whingeing, Tiger" it has to be said that not one of his utterances was specifically directed at Woods. But it was, at best, criticism by heavy implication, when he said: "Is it [the ceremonial dinner] a nuisance? No, we all have to eat, whether it is in your room or somewhere else. I have my own exercise regime and I'll have to be up before 6am each morning to get it done. But I don't mind that. I love the whole atmosphere of the Ryder Cup."

Montgomerie will surely have known that when Tiger assessed the relative value to him of winning last week's $5m (£3.2m) American Express Championship in Kilkenny and a good individual showing in the Ryder Cup, he came down on the side of the credit card which does very nicely, thank you. So was Montgomerie's sudden public enthusiasm for the match – which he was far from sure he would be performing in less than a week ago – altogether wise? Certainly not when you consider that no sportsman on earth is less in need of extra motivation than Woods, and it is not as though Montgomerie has not felt the full force of this truth.

When Woods smashed the field in his first Masters triumph, Monty was his hapless partner on the Saturday when the tournament was reduced to farce. Seventy-two hours earlier, Montgomerie had warned Tiger that he still had some learning to do.

In Ireland last week Woods carefully qualified his answer but those remarks were naturally lost beneath the weight of criticism that he had revealed the unpatriotic, grab-all side of his nature. They are still probably worth repeating. "I'm not saying the Ryder Cup is not important," Woods said. "It's a completely different animal. This week is an individual effort; next week's tournament is about the team. You can go out there and play absolutely lousy and the team can win – or you can play absolutely great and win all your five matches and still lose the Ryder Cup. They are two completely different animals."

What Woods has been saying, it is not so hard to read between the lines, is that he plays every tournament as it comes, and that he sees his role out on the course as playing brilliant golf rather than losing his edge of concentration in a series of glad-handing public relations exercises. This is probably one of the major differences between the psyches of the American and European golfers, and one perhaps underlined more heavily than usual with the absence of the ultimate European competitor, Nick Faldo.

The Americans understand that for all the charm of the best of the Ryder Cup, professional golf will always essentially be a man-on-man, and man-on-himself, battle. This is probably why the US team always clean up in the singles and why their womenfolk delivered such an almighty thrashing of Europe in the Solheim Cup at the weekend.

Monty says the Tiger should come along and have a drink and a bite with the rest of the boys. He better hope God has other things on his mind.