Colin Montgomerie described being able to play his 600th European Tour event on a course bearing his name as “amazing” ahead of the Turkish Airlines Open by the Ministry for Youth and Sport.
The Eight-time European Number One will become just the seventh player to reach the milestone when he tees up at the Montgomerie Maxx Royal in Antalya.
“It's amazing - you'd have to pinch me if you told me this was going to happen,” said the Scot, who made his debut as an amateur in 1986 and has gone on to win 31 times and amassed €24,547,785 in prize money.
“It's a delight and a real honour to join an illustrious group that have reached 600 - the ones that have done it have been very fortunate in many ways to be healthy for that length of time to achieve that. But when you think it's 30 tournaments for 20 years in a row, it's a lot and it's a long walk.”
Asked to pick a highlight from his illustrious career, which saw him collect two Senior Major Championships this summer, Montgomerie chose his hat-trick of victories at Wentworth between 1998-2000.
“There wasn't one particular win - it was three wins in a row at Wentworth at the PGA Championship,” he added.
“That's never been done before and that was as good as I could have done. That was the highlight of my playing career, to win at Wentworth three times in a row.”
With this week's event forming part of The Race to Dubai Final Series, Montgomerie is competing against some of the best players in the world.
But he will not have to take on the player he considers his greatest opponent – Germany's 42-time European Tour winner Bernhard Langer.
“You were never going to rely on Bernhard Langer to beat himself,” added Montgomerie. “You always had to go and beat Bernhard Langer - he was never going to give you anything.
“Most of the other guys on The European Tour you felt could give you something; they could give you a bogey or give you a double at the right time. Langer and [Sir Nick] Faldo, mostly Langer, did not - they did not give you anything. So you had to go and beat them and they were the toughest competitors, the ones that you had to beat.
“Every time I did beat them, sometimes in Europe, that was a very important win for me when I said I could actually beat them, because I knew that they were giving 100 per cent and not beating themselves.”
