Angle Over Artillery: Reading a Montgomerie Course the Way It Was Drawn

Colin Montgomerie won eight European Tour Order of Merit titles without ever being the longest hitter in the field. He did it by driving the ball on a string, by hitting long irons with a repeatable flight, and by thinking his way around a course with a clarity that made him such an awkward opponent in matchplay. It should surprise nobody that his design work reflects those same priorities. Walk a Montgomerie course with a scorecard and a little patience and you will find a set of questions about angle, position and judgement rather than a test of brute strength.

That makes his layouts unusually instructive for the club golfer. Most of us will never play a championship course in tournament condition, but every one of us can borrow the thinking.

The Wide Fairway Is a Question, Not a Compliment

The first thing a golfer notices on a Montgomerie course is space from the tee. Fairways are generally generous, and the instinct is to reach for the driver and let fly. Look again.

The width is there to offer a choice. The tee shot is designed so that one side of the fairway opens the green and the other closes it, usually because of a bunker, a ridge or the shape of the green's entrance. Take Prince's in Kent, where the Montgomerie loop runs through the dunes with fairways that look forgiving but reward the player who takes on the correct side. Rowallan Castle, in Ayrshire, applies the same principle in parkland: the fairway is wide, but the approach from the wrong half is a different shot altogether.

The practical lesson is to pick your line from the green backwards. Find the part of the fairway that leaves the simplest second shot, treat that as your target, and then choose the club that gets you there rather than the club that gets you furthest.

Bunkers as Questions

Montgomerie's bunkering is rarely decorative. It is placed to make you decide, and often to make you decide twice. A cross bunker short of the green asks whether you have the strike and the nerve to carry it. A fairway bunker on the inside of a dogleg asks whether the extra twenty yards justifies the risk. A cluster of small pots around a green asks you to commit to a landing area rather than firing at a flag.

The club golfer's error is to treat every bunker as an obstacle to be avoided at all costs. Better to ask what it is protecting. If the sand sits short and left of the green, the sensible miss is long and right. Once you have identified the safe side, the hole becomes a target rather than a hazard.

On the tee, name the bunker that would ruin your hole and give it a wide berth. On the approach, choose the side of the green where a miss still leaves a straightforward chip.

Greens That Ask You to Arrive Properly

The green complexes are where a Montgomerie course quietly collects its shots. Greens tend to be large and boldly contoured, with run-offs and collection areas that feed the ball away from the flag. The premium skill is not spinning the ball; it is arriving in the right quadrant.

This is where most amateurs lose two or three shots a round without noticing. They aim at the flag from 150 yards, miss by eight yards, and find themselves putting from a different plateau. The golfer who plays to the middle of the correct section and accepts a twenty-five foot putt will beat them nearly every time.

Take the front edge yardage as your number, not the flag. If the pin is back, add the club and trust it. If the flag is tucked behind a bunker, play to the fat side of the green and take your two putts. On the surfaces themselves, read the putt from the low side and remember that on a large green the first six feet of break usually matter more than the last six.

Par Fives and the Discipline of Patience

Montgomerie's par fives are generally reachable for the strong player and deliberately awkward for everyone else. Bunkers sit at the distance where a careless second shot lands, and the green is often angled so that only one line of approach works.

The lesson is straightforward: decide your third shot before you hit your second. If you cannot reach the green comfortably, lay back to your favourite wedge distance rather than creeping forward into trouble. A deliberate 85-yard approach from a flat lie is worth more than a hopeful 40-yard pitch from sand.

Applying It at Home

You do not need a signature course to use any of this. On your own track, try three rounds with a single discipline each. In the first, walk to every tee with a plan for the side of fairway you want. In the second, aim at the middle of every green regardless of the flag. In the third, lay up to a chosen number on every hole you cannot reach in two.

Play them as a set rather than all at once, and keep a note of where the shots went. Most golfers will find their score improving before their ball striking does, because the change is in the head rather than the hands.

That is the Montgomerie principle in miniature. The course can be generous, the greens can be large, the fairways can look inviting, and the golfer who thinks two shots ahead rather than one will still come out in front. It is a philosophy built by a man who learned early that precision and patience beat power, and it remains the most useful thing a club golfer can take from a round on one of his courses.