Monty: No cheating, just a dash for safety

Colin Montgomerie today admitted he would rather face allegations of cheating on the golf course than chance his life in a lightning storm.

Montgomerie was speaking for the first time about the incident during the second round of the Indonesian Open in March when he fled the course without adhering to the rules by marking his ball which lay in an awkward spot in a bunker.

When he returned for the resumption of play the next day the ball had disappeared and the Scot, with the aid of his playing partners, had to guess where it had been.

As television pictures later revealed, Montgomerie had replaced his ball in a different spot and that led to Danish rival Soren Kjeldson writing to the European Tour to complain.

When Montgomerie learned of his error, for which he was cleared by the tournament director, he immediately donated his fourth-place prize of £24,000 to the tsunami fund.

Last night, on the eve of the pro-am for the Dunlop Masters at the Forest of Arden course near Coventry, he faced further questioning about the incident at a meeting of the Tour's tournament committee.

Montgomerie said he told them: "The reason I didn't mark my ball was there was a huge clap of thunder right behind me, but it wasn't just thunder.

"There was a lightning bolt and I wasn't prepared to stand in the bunker for any longer than I had to while marking my ball and picking it up. I know we're only talking about a matter of seconds but at the same time you never know in a thunder storm. So I ran off the green.

"You don't mess around with these Indonesian thunder storms because we all know how violent they can be. There is always talk of how they've lost five people in a year to lightning strikes.

"Well, sorry, I don't want to be one of them and I'd rather answer for not marking the ball than not be here to do so!"