Poulter plays safe but Monty needs a miracle

Ian Poulter today expressed satisfaction with his own golf and sympathy for Colin Montgomerie after the two met with sharply contrasting fortunes in the 85th US PGA Championship here.

Poulter beat Montgomerie by one shot on Sunday to win the Nordic Open in Copenhagen. He carried that form into the season's last major, carding a two-over-par 72 at the Oak Hill Country Club in New York state.

That left him six shots shy of joint leaders Phil Mickelson of the United States and Australian Rod Pampling, but 10 ahead of Montgomerie.

Poulter is easily distinguished by his flamboyant hairstyle sporting blonde streaks, but it was his patient golf that really made him stand out in front of huge galleries.

The 27-year-old said: "I kept hitting fairways. On the fairways I did miss I made par. I just took my medicine, chopped it back to the fairway and up-and-downed it from there.

"It is so easy to card an 82 like Monty and I know he wouldn't have been happy with that.

"The rough is so thick you've got to miss the fairways by only a foot and you're having to hack it out, moving the ball forward barely 50 yards.

"On top of that, if you don't put it on the right part of the green it is easy to three-putt. If you're not quite on top of your game you're just going to rack up a big number."

Montgomerie started confident that he had overcome the disappointment of his injury-enforced withdrawal from The Open at Royal St George's, but will now have to work a miracle to avoid the cut after his worst round this side of the Atlantic.

The 40-year-old Scot moaned: "The six pars I made were good, the 12 bogeys weren't so good."

At least he wasn't the only one to struggle. Rich Beem, the defending champion, matched Montgomerie's 12-over score. Ben Curtis, shock winner of last month's Open, will resume on five over. Thomas Bjorn, who threw The Open title away, had a 78, one shot better than Paul Casey and one shot worse than Justin Rose.

Tiger Woods could do no better than a four-over 74 and the world No1 looks set to endure his first summer without winning a major since 1998.

Play was set to go ahead today despite a state of emergency being declared in the wake of the power cuts that swept the north east of the United States.

Kerry Haigh, senior director of the PGA of America, said: "We'll find out what the state of emergency means, but as far as I'm concerned everything is on schedule."

The course has a supply of generators which kept essential power going when the cuts occurred yesterday afternoon. Most of the spectators and players were unaware of the dramas happening elsewhere.