GOLF/QUATAR MASTERS: Colin Montomerie is out to restore his battered pride on his first appearance in the $1.5 million Qatar Masters this week.

Montgomerie missed the cut in last week's Dubai Desert Classic for the first time in more than a decade, slumping to a second-round 79 at Emirates Golf Club.

A triple-bogey seven on his final hole condemned the 38-year-old to an early exit from the event for the first time since 1990, and he spent all weekend practising in Dubai to try to avoid a similar fate in Qatar.

"I practised hard over the weekend, I spent six hours chipping because that was very poor in Dubai," the Scot said yesterday at Doha Golf Club.

"You were going to miss greens because it was firm and I left myself seven opportunities to get up and down and missed them all. Then I turn on my TV and see Joey Sindelar missed 18 greens and hasn't dropped a shot in a tournament in America. There's a big difference there and that's what I'm trying to work on.

"Your pride hurts, very much so, especially when you haven't missed a cut there since 1990. Seventy-nine is not very good and it was made worse by taking seven at the last, 76 would have been a lot better pride-wise."

Missing the cut by four shots in Dubai means Montgomerie has only played four rounds of competitive golf this year, pulling out of the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth with a back injury after the first round, and losing to Scott McCarron in the first round of the World Matchplay in California.

"The game is okay, it's just a matter of scoring, making the putts. I haven't actually played much golf," added the seven-time European number one, who toured possible sites for a new golf course he hopes to construct in Qatar on Monday.

"My back caused me problems and for me the only way of getting better is competing under pressure. I hope I'll finish this tournament, it will be the first one I've finished!"

Prize money for the fifth staging of the Qatar Masters has been doubled to $1.5 million and has attracted a high-quality field to the Gulf state.

Montgomerie is joined by the likes of Ian Woosnam, Darren Clarke and former champions Andrew Coltart and Paul Lawrie, and Zimbabwe's Tony Johnstone returns to defend the title he won 12 months ago.

The 45-year-old admits his game is slightly rusty however, "chronic oxidisation" as he put it, after undergoing shoulder surgery in December last year.

"It was fabulous to win here last year, but shortly after winning I went on holiday to Mauritius with the family and had a fall," said Johnstone who missed the cut in Dubai last week and Malaysia the week before.

"It was not a radical one but I messed up the rotator cuff in my left shoulder which really threw a spanner in the works for the whole season.

"I had to take 10 weeks off after that and probably came back too soon after that and only made six cuts in 16 events. I sort of managed to learn to play with the injury and finished seventh in the Volvo Masters but I wasn't really going anywhere and had to have the operation done.

"It's been a complete success, they just didn't manage to transplant a new brain in my head while they were at it!" Not a brain that realises the dangers of camel riding a week before you are supposed to defend your title at any rate.

"We were doing a little thing for television and the camel and I had different ideas about when he should get up and I should get off," added Johnstone. "And the camel won.

"I didn't realise a camel was four storeys tall, how hard it was to get on a camel wearing a dish-dash, and how quickly you could get off a camel wearing a dish-dash. I landed on both feet but my head nearly went through my shoulders."

Fortunately no lasting damage was done and Johnstone will partner 1999 Open champion Lawrie and India's Arjun Atwal in the first round.

Meanwhile, Clarke is making his first appearance in Qatar since the inaugural event in 1998, when he finished tied for ninth, seven adrift of eventual champion Coltart.

He finished joint seventh last week without ever threatening to win the tournament, but closing rounds of 68 and 69 indicated he could be one to watch this week, especially if the wind blows as expected.

"I played very well last week, hit the ball very solid but did not make anything on the greens," said Clarke, at 14th the highest ranked player in the world taking part.

"Hopefully I can play the same this week and hole a few putts. My stroke on the putts is very good, I'm just going through a spell where the ball is not going in. They are going to start dropping sooner or later."