Articles concerning calf injury: http://www.scotsman.com/sport/golf/calf-injury-a-major-blow-for-colin-montgomerie-1-2525633, http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/italian-open-colin-montgomerie-withdraws-injured-091312, http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/golf/bmw-italian-open-trio-of-scots-struggling-with-injury.18871549
A torn calf muscle forced Colin Montgomerie out of the BMW Italian Open on Thursday, having been able to only play 9 holes in his first round. He was 1-over, with two bogeys and one birdie. It was not an encouraging start, considering he has not made the cut at Royal Park I Roveri in the last three years. He was wearing a special sock that keeps the blood flowing in the calf and was, also, wearing special shoes which helped alleviate some of the stress on it. Apparently, while hitting a bunker shot on the 2nd hole, he aggravated the injury and did well to fight on until finishing his front nine, shooting one-over, which considering the circumstances, is very respectable. He withdrew after nine holes, and now all he can do is rest it.
His confidence was probably sky-high after his tied-6th finish at the Johnnie Walker Championship, his first top-ten of the season, where his previous best finish in a full-field event had been tied-44th (he finished 31st at the limited-field Volvo Golf Champions). Unfortunately, he followed the T6 up with a tied-64th at the Omega European Masters at picturesque Crans-sur-Sierre, Switzerland. According to reports, he suffered the calf injury in the final round at Crans.
He is languishing at 132nd in the Race to Dubai and is ranked 405th in the Official World Golf Rankings. I certainly realize that while Monty is 49-years-old, those numbers are completely unacceptable. Age, I don't believe, plays a factor in this. He is hitting the ball as good as he ever has, according to Ewen Murray on a Sky Sports broadcast at the Alstom Open de France. The bottom-line is that his putting is downright atrocious, averaging 30.9 putts per round (good for 205th on Tour). In today's day and age, that is not going to cut it with the amount of depth the European Tour and world golf has right now. He is 9th in fairways hit on Tour and 127th in greens in regulation. He is 228th in driving distance, meaning he is going into greens with long irons or woods, while most players are using short irons or wedges, helping them to be more accurate. While this is a reason that he's 216th in scoring average (72.96) on Tour, it all comes down to putting. There have been a few times this season where he has hit all 18 greens and only scored 3-under. Granted, he's under par, but he should be at least -6 or -7. Let's hope that he can practice on his putting while resting his calf and not just spend the recovery time laid up and not practicing.
Unfortunately, a torn calf muscle needs at least eight weeks to fully heal. That would mean Colin would have to wait until either the Hong Kong Open or the Barclays Singapore Open to tee it up again. However, something tells me that he'll be back for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in three weeks. He has said that he is still extremely competitive, which was part of the reason that he went against doctor's orders and played in Italy. It is for this reason that I feel that he will tee it up in Scotland in three weeks or, at the very latest, at the Portugal Masters the following week. The injury just needs time to properly heal, but three weeks might be enough to make it tolerable.
So let's hope that Monty can recover from this injury and get back to playing his best golf by finishing this year out strong and coming out with a bang in 2013!
