By John Tully-Jackson
From nuclear missile threats to global pop stars, Colin Montgomerie has had quite the time of it recently and, apparently, just as much fun sharing the drama when he was reacquainted with “old friends” in the Omega Dubai Desert Classic media centre Tuesday.

The eight-time European Order of Merit champion, making his first appearance in Dubai since the 25th anniversary edition in 2014, flew in via Hawaii where a last hole bogey gifted American Jerry Kelly the PGA Champions Tour’s Mitsubishi Electric Championship. 

But that was only half the excitement in Hawaii with the Scot unsure he’d make it to the Mitsubishi after a missile threat alert was issued across the island, necessitating some time in a different sort of bunker.

“It’s interesting, of all the places to go, Sarah and I, we landed on Friday into Kona and Saturday morning, someone’s going to blow us up, and I thought, well, that’s great,” Monty said in his typically droll Scottish way.

“Of all places to land, you know, you could pick anywhere, couldn’t you, really, and yet we picked the one place that was a missile threat.

“It was a weird sort of thing, because people were going down manholes and stuff. I mean, what the hell, that’s no use. If I was going to sort of know it’s going to end, I’d just about order a drink from the bar and sit on the beach and watch it happen, really. Because you’re going anyway, so you might as well just go out in style, other than down a bloody manhole. That’s not the way to go, is it?

“I mean, that’s bizarre, absolutely bizarre. But yeah, of all the places to go to, you’ve flown two days to bloody well get there and someone goes and blows you up. Perfect, [laughter] bloody perfect.”

Fortunately for the 31-time European Tour winner, the warning was a false alarm and he’s  made it to Dubai. It’s just not the golfing landscape the 1994 champion quite remembers even if “yeah, people seem to recognise me”.

“I don’t know, caddies wearing shorts, can’t recognise anybody, even [entertainer] Niall Horan. Terrible, isn’t it. Niall Horan [who is playing Wednesday’s Pro-Am with good pal Rory McIlroy], he has more Twitter followers than I have for sure.”

Done with being star-struck by pop stars populating the practice range, Monty divulged that if golf ever becomes too much of a challenge, he always has surfing. Yes, you read that right, surfing.

“Yes, well, I thought golf was very difficult, as I said on my Twitter and I felt, there’s got to be something easier than this. And somebody said that I needed a good core to allow myself to surf.

“So I thought it possibly was a bit harder than I gave it credit for. So I didn’t bother. And there was a bit of a reef out on the Hawaiian coast and I was told to not bother there because I would kill myself on that reef… if I wasn’t bombed, I would kill myself on the reef, so I haven’t done either.

“But it was a good idea until someone said I needed a strong core to do that.”

But seriously, how’s your game? You must be encouraged even with the last gasp bogey in Hawaii?

“Very much so. I’m very fortunate in my career to say that I haven’t, you know, messed up too often. I messed up the last hole, and you know, my own fault. A one-shot lead, playing the last, I should really wrap that up, but all credit to him. He made his birdie, and I drove into a bunker and made a bogey. That was that.

“So yeah, but looking on it, as a positive, it’s a very good start to the year. Two 65s to start the year with a nine-week break was good.

“I’ve been working with Kevin Craggs up near Edinburgh. He came down to Willesley a couple of times to work on my pitching and chipping, which has been poor over the last few years to be honest, and I had to improve that to save the shots, you know, to turn the 70s into 68s and that’s working already. It’s a long year and I look forward to it with a good, solid start behind me.”

Can you still compete with these young bucks?

“Yeah, it’s a good question. These courses, they are not pitch-and-putt courses, these. They are 7000 yards. They are decent courses. It will be interesting to see where I am in many ways, you know, because I’m playing okay.

“I’m hitting the ball well. I’m finding the fairways. I’m finding the greens and I’m actually holing out okay. It will be interesting to see how I fair under these conditions here. This course has got longer obviously, playing longer because it’s over-seeded, so it plays about 7,400 now, 7,500. It’s a much longer course, and of course the standard of golf, it will be interesting to see how you get on against these young guys that hit the ball well, well, honestly, 40, 50 yards past me.

“So it will be interesting to see if it is all to do with length off the tee or is it about trying to get the ball in the hole with the least number of shots. It will be interesting to see how I fare and how some other guys around my age playing here will do similar. Jimenez, Els is here, Bjorn, Clarke, these type of guys, to see how they do, as well. It’s a great field. We’ve got a great field assembled, great field.”