'Classy wee place' - Golfing great Colin Montgomerie relives his youth in Yorkshire on happy return to Ilkley

“We had a great time back then. And it’s changed a lot, and for the better, the bridge over at the first, the second hole, the 18th tee, some of the changes out on the course… superb. I’d forgotten how good it was.”

As we talk, Montgomerie is in high demand. Playing partners are asking for selfies, for their gloves to be autographed, for hands to be shaken, and a man who towered over European golf for two decades is happily obliging.

This is not the Montgomerie of repute, an image carved out mainly by Americans who mocked his frame but feared his talismanic influence on their Ryder Cup opponents.

This is the man the organisers of the Yorkshire Invitational – SGH Events – have been courting from the outset of their growing tournament seven years ago.

And amongst an array of celebrity sports stars including former England manager Gareth Southgate, Montgomerie is living up to top billing.

In full flow, on full beam, the full Monty.

His achievements in golf are well-known – eight times European Order of Merit winner, a champion in tournaments around the world, and a Ryder Cup player for the ages. He is one of Scotland’s finest ever golfers, but the extent to which his game was forged here in this idyllic corner of West Yorkshire, is not so commonly known. Fortunately, he was in the mood to relive it.

“We moved down from Scotland when I was six,” begins Montgomerie.

“My father’s business was MacDonald’s Biscuits in Glasgow, and he moved down to Fox’s Biscuits in Batley so that’s why we lived in Ilkley and we joined the club here.

“My dad was captain in 79, my mum was captain in 1980, so it was home.

“And with my dad’s job came four season tickets down at Elland Road. This was 1970, when Leeds were top of the tree. It was Don Revie’s time, it was Brian Clough’s famous 44 days, Jimmy Armfield – a great time.

“And I loved it. I attended Leeds Grammar School and really loved it here. It was home, and it still feels that way somehow. I’ve met a number of people that knew my mum and dad, they’ve both passed away since, but it’s been lovely to be here, a lovely feel. Driving around Ilkley and showing my wife who had never been here before… it’s a classy wee place you know. Anytime there’s a Betty’s cafe you know you’re in a classy wee place.

“We spent 20 years here, aged six to 26. Then after I came back from university in America we moved back to Scotland, when dad finished working at Fox’s.”

Ilkley, and its golf club on the banks of the River Wharfe, left an indelible mark on the young Montgomerie.

“I’d cycle down from the house, clubs on my back,” he recalls. “We lived on Rupert Road just up Langbar Road, so it was reachable on your bike. And I was all day here, on this practice ground.

“And I think this practice ground happens to be, I believe, the best practice ground in Britain,” he says, in a nod to its width and being flanked by the picturesque moors. “Wentworth doesn’t have it, Sunningdale doesn’t.

“I used to spend all day here. Bill Ferguson was the pro, John Hammond took over and I’ve just met him out on the course there; lovely fella, lovely fella.

“It shaped my career. I used to caddie for Bill in the pro-captain challenges and I learnt an awful lot from him, such a good player as he was. Bill and this driving range are the reason I am where I am.

“Life’s about memories, I suppose, and looking back it was a good time here.”

Attending Leeds Grammar, the young Montgomerie was also a cricketer, good enough to represent Yorkshire at under-18 level. He was in the county system in golf by that time, and his mind was made up about which sport had a brighter future for him at a nets session.

“I loved my cricket, I got into the Yorkshire Under-18s, I was down at Headingley nets. I’m a teenager, you fancy yourself a bit don’t you?” his eyes light up. “It was the days before helmets, or they were just coming in, and it was Chris Old – do you remember Chris Old? Medium fast they called him. Well, he started bowling at us, this thing rose off a length and almost decapitated me and I’m going right, if this is medium fast, forget this! That was my cricket days over. Golf was safer.”

He played all around the county – “Moortown, Sandmoor, Alwoodley, were always great courses, Pannal too. We played Yorkshire games at Ganton.”

And it was two professional events in Yorkshire he played in as an amateur that convinced him he could make a living out of golf.

“I played the Benson and Hedges as an amateur in ‘87, just as we were leaving here, and I made the cut,” he remembers. “Then another was the CarCare Plan at Moortown, where I made the cut. I made three cuts in total, and I added up what I would have made, it was £1,000 which in those times was quite a lot of money. Maybe I should give this a go.”

Thank goodness he did, for what a career, highlighted by an imperious record in the Ryder Cup, never beaten in eight singles matches. He also returned to captain Europe to victory on a wet weekend in Wales in 2010. Luke Donald was on his team that year and is now going for three in a row as captain at Adare Manor next year. Does it make Montgomerie wish he had hung around? “Ooh no, it doesn’t make me envious at all. I got lucky once and got out,” laughs the 63-year-old.

“He’s got lucky twice. Good team, he’s got the data guy in Edoardo (Molinari), the team didn’t change much, it won’t change much again and I think we’ll win it again.

“The timing was right for him and he’s taken that opportunity with both hands. We’ve not lost at home for 34 years, that record is going to break one day, the way things are going we’ll be favourites.”

His own time as captain draws a chuckle.

“Have they reopened the course yet, it was practically under water,” he says of Celtic Manor, before regaling the story of the US team wearing waterproofs that leaked. “The trouble is they stitched the names in the back of the jackets, and of course all the holes they’d stitched in let the rain in,” he laughs. “So Mickelson got drenched compared to Woods or Cink who had shorter names.

“There’s a certain bond you have for life with your 11 team-mates and your captain. When I see Peter Hanson or Ross Fisher or the Molinaris, it’s always 2010 – amazing.”

Monty is in good form, so I broach the subject of his career in the majors, where he came up short, never more agonisingly than at the US Open at Winged Foot 20 years ago when he stood in the middle of the 72nd hole needing to make a par that would have finally ended his long wait.

“It was just one of those things, you’ve got to play 72 holes and unfortunately I played 71,” as a rueful grin lines his face.

“Phil Mickelson did exactly the same thing after me, double-bogeying the last hole, but the thing was I was in the middle of the fairway, he wasn’t. I had a long wait for Vijay Singh, nine minutes. You think negative thoughts eventually, instead of getting on with it.

“But hey, there’s no real regrets in my career, I’ve stayed healthy through it all, and I’m not complaining. But in saying that, if there was one shot…that’s it.”

There were plenty of good ones, though. “A couple of Ryder Cup putts that went in, a couple of Ryder Cup shots that went in.

“The PGA Championships, three in a row, that was a delight. There’s no regrets.”

No longer as active a member on the circuit as he was, he still keeps his eye in. The recent victory by Yorkshire’s Jack Whaley at the US Amateur draws praise.

“That’s a biggie, a huge one,” before adding with a hint of mischief-making: “Surely The Yorkshire Post has to go and cover the Masters…you’ve got to report on that.”

I’m working on it Colin.

And with that, the floodgates open and the well-wishes converge on Montgomerie. He finally takes a gulp of the pint before greeting them all, happy to be back in the classy wee place that played such a prominent role in his life.