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| Colin Montgomerie has 20 career victories, but he has yet to win a major. |
"I always seem to save my worst golf for the third week in July," he lamented.
But the 36-year-old Scot now has his first individual victory in Scotland to go with his part in the Dunhill Cup-winning team event at St. Andrews in 1995.
The remorseless efficiency of his closing 7-under 64, containing nine birdies in 12 holes from the fifth to the 16th, produced an emotional triumph, his 20th in Europe. Montgomerie said he wanted to savour the victory before shifting his thoughts to Carnoustie.
"I'll have to be level-headed and careful and calm down and start over again. I'll have to be confident and sensible at the same time," he said.
He is ready for the narrow fairways and heavy rough he will encounter on a layout where many are predicting the title will be won with an over-par score.
Carnoustie is staging the Open for the first time since Tom Watson won the first of his five titles in 1975, so Montgomerie has not played a major here. But he did play the Scottish Open on the course in 1995 and 1996 with mixed results.
His opening 64 in 1995 gave him a share of the course record as he took third place. Then in 1996, he shot a final-round 81 in a stiff wind to tie for 16th place.
This time he wants to transport the fans from Loch Lomond to cheer him on.
"This is very special for me, coming from this side of Scotland myself," said Montgomerie after his win. He was born in Glasgow and spent his boyhood at Troon on the west coast. "They are superb and knowledgeable crowds. Most of them are golfers and the support I had today was unbelievable.
"I'd love to transport them to the east coast, although I'm sure I'll get a lot of support over there, too. I look forward to that."
Montgomerie's last round at Loch Lomond was every bit as satisfying as the other great finishing rounds of his career, the 10-under-par 62 in the Irish Open at Druids Glen in 1996 and the 64 as he took the PGA title at Wentworth last year.
He started and finished with bogey 5s, both after bunkered approaches.
"But to have nine birdies in 12 holes around a course of this quality against a field of this quality, knowing what I had to do with how well (Lee) Westwood and the others were playing ... it was important for me to be seen coming through with another birdie every 10 minutes."
Eventually, he wore down the opposition. Westwood double bogeyed the 10th to drop out of the lead and could not recover. Spanish teen Sergio Garcia, who had opened the tournament with a 62, might have seized advantage of Montgomerie's closing bogey by forcing a playoff.
But he bogeyed the 16th and the last to finish in a three-way tie for second place with Swedes Mats Lanner and Michael Jonzon, three strokes off the lead.
Having knocked one monkey off his back by winning an individual event in Scotland, Montgomerie will tackle the other bigger one this week. He has yet to win a major title.