AMERICA AT LARGE/George Kimball: When Colin Montgomerie visited Brookline for the Ryder Cup back in 1999, the boisterous galleries quickly seized upon his unfortunate resemblance, in profile, to the American football coach Bill Parcells, and took to calling him "Big Tuna". After watching Monty's disintegration at Muirfield last week, one of his former Fleet Street admirers took to calling him "a big tart".

We're not quite sure which appellation is worse, but it became clear over the past weekend, if it wasn't already, that the most thankless job on earth must belong to Montgomerie's sports psychologist.

In what was presumably a well-intentioned ploy, though one certain to grab headlines, Golf Digest magazine distributed thousands of "Be Nice to Monty" badges at last month's US Open. Whether the message actually got across or whether it was because Monty never threatened, or, more probably, because the New York galleries found a new favourite whipping boy in Sergio Garcia (aka "Waggle Boy"), Montgomerie virtually got a free ride at Bethpage.

It was, in any case, a far cry from his treatment at Brookline three years earlier (when the late Payne Stewart actually waded into the crowd to identify one of Montgomerie's tormentors for the benefit of the course marshals, who escorted the miscreant from the premises) or at the World Matchplay at La Costa earlier this year, when the Monty-baiting became so mean-spiritedly personal that the beefy Scotsman swore that once he fulfilled this year's commitments he would never cross the Atlantic again.

Every time an American heckler shouts "Mrs Doubtfire!" in his direction, Monty must silently curse David Feherty, who hung the name on him.

Given his tempestuous exit from the 131st Open Championship on Sunday, you'd now have to wonder whether the honeymoon is over for Monty on this side of the pond as well. His Jekyll-and-Hyde performance extended well beyond the golf course, where he followed his jovial second-round course-record 64 with an execrable 84 on Saturday.

Saturday, of course, was also the day Tiger Woods went around Muirfield in 81, but Tiger redeemed himself by facing the music in a self-deprecating interview with several dozen members of the media just beyond the 18th green.

Monty, at least to hear Fleet Street scribes tell it, slinked out the back gate.

Or so it was reported, anyway. In any case, on Sunday Montgomerie, having securely nailed down his 82nd-place finish (in a field of 83), stormed off the course to lecture the press about having reported that he had stormed off the course the previous afternoon. He did pause long enough to vent his temper over allegations in some British newspapers that he had, well, vented his temper the day before.

"I played in very difficult circumstances (Saturday), and I'm very disappointed at the way you keep on trying to believe I have a bad temper on the golf course," fumed Monty. "I haven't shown a sign of a bad temper on the golf course for five years, and I'm very, very disappointed." Monty's explanation was that he was prepared to share his thoughts even after the ugly round, but that so many reporters were busy listening to Woods that he didn't want to wait around.

"No one wanted to speak to me. I didn't 'storm off', " he insisted. "Okay?" With that, Montgomerie lowered the boom. He was so "hurt" by his treatment that he had pulled out of golf tournaments for the next two weeks.

Exactly how that is supposed to penalise his tormentors from the Fourth Estate wasn't altogether clear.

And with that, he did storm off.

NOw, to be fair, the treatment Montgomerie gets from the media in his homeland sometimes appears to mirror the bipolarity of his own tortured psyche. On Monday a major Scottish newspaper ran what were presumably supposed to be "before" and "after" photos. One, identified as the 64-shooting Monty, showed him in a jovial mode, while the other depicted a glowering Monty, displaying the famous scowl Feherty once described as resembling that of "a dog that's just licked piss off a nettle", and sheltered by an umbrella, presumably taken on the way to his 84.

Trouble was, as any careful reader of The Scotsman could have noted, he was wearing the same outfit in both photos, and those who were at Muirfield over the weekend would have known from his jumper that the "Happy Monty" photo had also been taken on Saturday.

It may be time to break out the "Be Nice To Monty" badges again when Montgomerie arrives at Haseltine in Minnesota for the PGA Championship three weeks hence. From there he heads to the Pacific Northwest for the NEC Invitational. In other words, in the run-up to September's Ryder Cup he won't be spending much time in Britain, and even less in Scotland, which is probably just as well.

The way things have been going, he may get a fairer shake from the once-detested American galleries than he's going to get at home.