Not finished then. Not even over the hill. Colin Montgomerie has proved this year that at 42 he can still compete with the best.

Winning an eighth European Order of Merit title has to rank among the Scot's greatest-ever achievements, considering his seventh was back in 1999 and only in January he had slumped to 83rd in the world.

Back then Montgomerie did not have a place in the Masters or US Open and while the stars of the game gathered in America to build up for Augusta he travelled around Asia looking for a way back into the big league.

There was controversy - ''Jakartagate'' as his rules rumpus became known - along the way, but slowly and surely he began to climb the rankings again leading up to the Open at St Andrews in July.

Tiger Woods was too good for everybody at the Home of Golf again, but Montgomerie regarded coming second ''to the best player of our generation'' as a triumph in itself and has not looked back since.

Others saw signs before that memorable week, though.

Among them was Paul McGinley, who found himself in the same boat as Montgomerie at the start of the year and whose own comeback reached a peak at the weekend with a brilliant victory in the Volvo Masters that lifted him to a best-ever third on the Order of Merit.

''You just had to look at his performance in the Ryder Cup last year to realise that he was far from done and dusted like people were trying to say about him,'' said the Dubliner.

''He is a class player and all credit to him. St Andrews has been good to him (Montgomerie returned there to win the Dunhill links championship), but he accelerated in the last month when he got a sniff of winning the money list.''

David Howell, another Ryder Cup team-mate who has also taken his career to a new level this year and might have finished much higher than seventh but for a two-month injury lay-off, commented: ''After two years of more off-course problems than you can imagine (a highly-publicised separation and divorce) what Monty's done is really impressive.

''And he does it with a method all of his own - one in a million. You can't teach it, but it repeats. He's got a funky swing and his putting method is not textbook, but it just works.

''He can play the game.'' A classic example, in other words, of a line every golfer trots out at some time - it's not how, it's how many.

Montgomerie would dearly love, of course, to put the icing on the cake by winning his first major some time in the future, but he rightly takes massive pride in what he has just done.

''I didn't need this, I just wanted it,'' he said. ''When you get in a position that you're second or you're leading I wanted it. I really did want it.

''I can't compare it to the other seven yet, but this is very special. It almost got to the stage before where it was expected, but to do it after a six-year gap against the competition means a lot.

''This has been the toughest. I was fortunate in many ways that Faldo, Langer, Woosnam, Lyle and Seve (Ballesteros) were not at the top of their games from '93 to '99, but I have had to compete with guys now that are on the top of their games - Garcia, Donald, McGinley, Harrington.

''I had to improve and I must have done because the competition has improved.''

Montgomerie was helped in winning the Order of Merit, it is only fair to point out, by the fact that Garcia, Donald and Harrington are US Tour members as well.

He played 25 events against their 11, 15 and 16 respectively. There was also the injury that has kept Ernie Els, the tour's number one the last two years and winner of three of his 11 events, out of action since July.

There is also the fact that Open and Masters champion Woods would have easily won the title if he had played the minimum 11. He appeared in just seven and earned almost twice as much.

But under the rules of the competition Montgomerie is king of the castle again. And will be one of Ian Woosnam's lynchpins when he earn an eighth Ryder Cup cap at the K Club near Dublin next September.