Monty pleased with opening exchanges

European Captain Colin Montgomerie was delighted with the early momentum his Team was able to build in the opening fourballs, before the elements intervened to force a suspension.

By Paul Symes, europeantour.com

Montgomerie’s charges are ahead in three of the four games, with only Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington trailing America’s rookie pairing of Jeff Overton and Bubba Watson.

In light of the encouraging start his Team had made the Scot was understandably keen to stay out on the Twenty Ten course for as long as the conditions would allow, but conceded that the increasingly heavy rain meant they were ultimately left with little choice but to suspend play.

Montgomerie said: “With us leading the first three games, our Team room is obviously happier than our opponents’ right now. And in the last game, if you are going to lose some holes then you are better off losing them early, and that’s what Luke and Pádraig have done – to two very good birdies, I must admit, by Jeff Overton and Bubba Watson. They are two down, but that’s after two holes, so that’s like scoring very early in a football match, so there’s plenty of time to recover.

“Both Captains were offered an opportunity to say what they felt about the conditions out there, and I wanted to stay on, in a perfect world; but at the same time, there was nothing we could do. Hopefully the spectators understood our decision, along with John Paramor, the Chief Referee, that there was nothing we could do but to call it off.”

Montgomerie also talked up the role the voluble crowd at The Celtic Manor Resort could play in determining the result of the contest in the coming days.

He said: “They are our 13th man, and the first tee has proved that. So we need the fans out there to be cheering as loud as possible for the rest of the day to help our side maintain the momentum that we have gathered in the first couple of hours of play this morning.”