Colin Montgomerie has vowed to fight all the way to maintain his position as European number one. The Scot's seven-year reign at the top of the Order of Merit is under severe threat following Lee Westwood's European Tour record-equalling sixth victory of the season in the World Match Play championship at Wentworth.

If Westwood goes on to claim another title on the European Tour this season - and he still has three chances to do that - then Montgomerie's stint as the best golfer in Europe could well be over.

Montgomerie is currently down at sixth place in the Order of Merit and now accepts that losing his coveted crown is a real possibility.

"Lee and I are very close in standard. I hope he does not mind me saying that," said Montgomerie. "We each had around 140 shots in the final and he's beaten me by one."

Montgomerie added: "I'm glad my game is back in some semblance of order, but Lee has had a great year and is favourite to take another of my titles, the Order of Merit. I'm going to have to play very well to prevent that happening."

"It's nice to have won the World Match Play," joked Westwood after emerging victorious from the longest Wentworth final since 1973. His comment was a reference to Darren Clarke's Andersen Consulting championship triumph in California in February, when the Ulsterman included Tiger Woods and David Duval among his scalps in claiming the first prize of one million dollars.

Westwood, whose reward was £250,000, added: "It's like boxing. Darren and I are going to unify the title in our next practice round.

"I'm not going to say which is the better one to win. The world championship does not have the history, but it does have the top 64 players in the world taking part. There are pluses and minuses to both.

"I just know it's nice to win a title as prestigious as this. I've been looking at the trophy and there are some great names on there."

As much as Montgomerie likes the West Course, he dislikes playoffs more. Both he and Westwood have now been involved in eight and while the Englishman's record now reads seven wins, one defeat, Montgomerie's is a mirror image of that - one win, seven defeats.

Westwood admitted he was "shattered" after having to go 20 holes on Monday morning on top of the 42 he had to play the day before following Saturday's rain delay.

He is glad he had already decided to skip the Dunhill Cup starting at St Andrews this week, but Montgomerie will be there to try to give Scotland a second title.