Golfer Montgomerie suffering flashbacks after crash

HAIKOU, China – Europe`s victorious Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie said Saturday he is suffering flashbacks after a serious car crash in Scotland last week.

The 47-year-old defied medical advice to play in this weekend`s celebrity pro-am Star Trophy tournament in southern China -- with a 1.28 million dollar winner`s cheque up for grabs. Montgomerie`s BMW 7-series collided with a van near Glasgow on October 21, and though he walked away from the crash, the golfer said the impact knocked his hip and ribcage out of position and he needed intensive physiotherapy to be ready for the Star Trophy. "It was a bit of a shock -- all the noise and the airbags and all that stuff that goes on, it goes through in a sort of slow motion. Not good when you can see someone in front of you that shouldn`t be there," he said. "I started the day just going down to meet my father in Glasgow, just a normal day, I was listening to some music and then boom. It was a shock." He said his wife Gaynor initially struggled to understand the scale of the crash -- which forced a major road to be closed in both directions for two hours -- when she came to collect him. "My wife was shopping in Perth and drove down, and I said `I`ve had a slight accident and the police will direct you in,` and she was going `What?!`," the former world number two said. "She lost her (previous) husband in 2003 and didn`t want to lose another one. It puts things into perspective. To drive home with her -- she drove, thank goodness -- and leave that scene as it was, was like `God almighty`." Montgomerie was trapped in the car for a while after the accident and said he felt that only the strength of the vehicle had saved him from serious injury. Bureau Report