Troon, Scotland ? Colin Montgomerie is home again, trying for perhaps the final time to win the major championship he so desperately covets on the course where he learned to play.

Seven years ago he made a mess of it at Royal Troon, where the hopes of his countrymen proved too much for his fragile psyche and he imploded early. On a course he had played hundreds of times, Montgomerie opened with a 76 and never was a factor on the weekend of that British Open.

He returns this week to find things much the same in this sleepy coastal town, where his father served as Royal Troon’s club secretary and he spent summers playing golf. But Montgomerie’s life — and expectations — are far removed from what they were in his heyday as Europe’s best player.

At the age of 41, he’s going through a divorce from his wife of 14 years made even more painful by the attention British tabloids pay to it. His game has been so lousy he had to win a qualifying playoff just to get in the tournament, and even the home folks would have to stretch to consider him a favorite.

Time is running out on his career, something Montgomerie is painfully aware of as he contemplates what likely will be his last competitive run at a Royal Troon Open.

“The day will come when all I can do is expect to finish in the top 10 and, well, I won’t be here,” Montgomerie said. “The reason I’m here is because I think I can still win. I still feel deep down there’s an opportunity to be here. And that goes for any tournament I enter.”

This tournament, though, means so much more to the ruddy-faced Scot whose major-championship failings haven’t diminished the love his countrymen will no doubt show him when he tees off Thursday in his 15th British Open.

Montgomerie will begin each day walking to the course from his father’s house a half mile away, passing familiar sights on his way to a most familiar place.

He’ll stick his tee into the ground he knows so well and hit shots on the same lines he mastered when he played Troon day after day after finally being allowed on the course at the age of 16.

Unlike 1997, when the crushing expectations were too much to bear, this time he’s just happy to be here. British bookmakers make him an 80-1 pick to win, and even that may be a bit generous.

“I thought back in June that I wasn’t going to be playing at all, so it’s a delight to be here in the first place,” Montgomerie said. “And I will do my utmost to do as well as I can.”

Scotland's Colin Montgomerie smiles during a news conference. He met with the media Tuesday before his practice round for the British Open at Royal Troon golf course in Troon, Scotland.

In June, Montgomerie still seemed consumed by his much-publicized divorce from wife Eimear, who he married at Troon Old Parish Church in a ceremony followed by a reception along the 18th fairway of the town’s famed championship course.

The tabloids were printing pictures of his wife with another man, he wasn’t eligible to play in the U.S. Open and he had to endure the indignity of a mass qualifying round just to make the field for Troon.

Things took a turn for the better a few weeks ago when he survived a 12-man playoff in Sunningdale, England, to earn a trip back to his home course for the Open. He didn’t make it by much, but he avoided being out of the Open for the first time since 1989, when he failed to qualify for the Open at Troon.

“It’s the first decent thing that has happened to me for a while,” Montgomerie said.

Things seemed better when he was on the course, even though the results expected by the seven-time leader of the European Tour money list haven’t been what he may have liked. Montgomerie is 27th in earnings this year, and shot 82 in the second round of the European Open, only two tournaments ago.

“I’ve played an awful lot of golf over this time. I played every tournament I entered for and tried to put my heart and soul in my golf and concentrate on that,” Montgomerie said. “And Sunningdale was a big day for me.”

Thursday also figures to be a big day for Montgomerie. He’ll be cheered on at every turn by fans sympathetic to his struggles both on the golf course and off.

It won’t likely be enough, but this time it may not matter as much. This time the pressure is off, and Montgomerie may be more at peace with himself than he has been at any previous Open where his failures were magnified by every wayward shot and every petulant look.

“I wouldn’t say I’m at a peak, but at the same time I’m a lot better than I was,” Montgomerie said. “I think time is a healer and you get on with things and that’s what I’ve got to do.”