London, Oct 23: Colin Montgomerie has revealed that he would have quit golf if he had failed to salvage his marriage after his wife temporarily left him two years ago. The Scot has also hinted that he might be close to retiring after playing a heroic role in Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph last month.

Montgomerie’s obsession with reaching and staying at the top helped him top European golf’s money list for a record seven years in-a-row.

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But it placed an unbearable strain on his family and, by the middle of 2000, his wife Eimear had finally had enough and ordered Montgomerie out of the family home he shared with her and their three children.

"To say that I was shattered is an understatement," Montgomerie told the Daily Telegraph in an interview published to coincide with the publication of his autobiography.

"I felt that everything that I had done, everything I had achieved, just fell through the floor," he recalled.

Montogomerie immediately realised his life had to change and set about the task of winning Eimear back. The couple were finally reconciled at Christmas 2000.

"If I had got divorced - oh boy. I would have given up golf. It would have ruined everything," Montgomerie said.

In his autobiography, Montgomerie reveals how the strains in his marriage left him in floods of tears during the British Open at St Andrews in July 2000.

It read: "After three rounds of the tournament, all of which provided a welcome escape from the growing tension at home, I was lying comfortably inside the top 10.

"I was shaping pretty well when, all of a sudden, events caught up with me. I suddenly broke down in tears on the course." Bureau Report