Colin Montgomerie Q&A: Why LIV players should be out as Ryder Cup captains, which of his eight order of merit titles mean the most to him and the Hall of Fame NFL coach he gets mistaken for all the time

Colin Montgomerie:  Well, 99.99 percent of the population would say no. But that .01 percent, who played the game professionally? Some say yes, some say no. I’m one of the ones that that would go against the bifurcation and say, it’s about time that actually we use the golf ball that went a particular distance again, 85 percent say, of the distance that it goes now and you know, we are the only sport really that brings our own equipment to the table.

You know, baseball, football, soccer, tennis, snooker, billiards, whatever it might be, is given a ball to play with and that’s that. We are one of the only sport that actually brings our own equipment with us. So I think we should be given a golf ball at the start of the week and off you go. You might be given a dozen of them just in case you lose one. But that’s the Tour golf ball. The longer hitters are still going to be longer. But it brings back these traditional courses that sometimes can’t be used anymore. The Merion’s of this world are getting too short, Pebble Beach is probably a little bit short right now as well, to be honest, these great courses that have to be extended, the costing of the money, you know, they have to lay new turf to put new tees in, to water it, to maintain it, labor costs to run it and all that sort of stuff. We’ve got to say hang on a minute, enough’s enough, you know, and let’s play a golf ball that goes 85 percent the distance that it does right now.