In his book, Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck recounts the road trip he took with Charley, his French poodle, around the US in 1960.

Travels with Monty is an account of visiting Turkey with the former Europe No 1 as he attended the opening of a course to which he has lent his name, the Montgomerie, at Belek on the southern coast of the Mediterranean.

First, some similarities between Monty and Charley: both have curly hair. Both can be grumpy.

Now, some differences: Colin Montgomerie does not need to be taken for a walk morning and evening nor does he need a tin of dog food each day.

More differences: Steinbeck travelled in a specially made camper van he named Rocinante, after Don Quixote's horse. Montgomerie flew commercially to Istanbul before transferring to a private plane to make the short journey down to Antalya.

At Heathrow airport Montgomerie was dressed in dark trousers, a grey sweater and had a golf jacket over one arm. When he is not behind the ropes at a golf tournament and not wearing golf spikes and not accompanied by a caddie, he looks incongruous.

"Where are you going?" were his opening words.

"I'm going to Turkey with you," I replied before asking him if he wanted a newspaper.

"No thank you. I read The Times from cover to cover on the way down," he replied, before pausing for effect to add: "well, it had to be done didn't it?"

When Montgomerie is doing business with people who have paid him a lot of money he is no more likely to be grumpy than he is to be sweetness and light when he has just bogied his last three holes in a tournament.

"What have you heard about Seve [Ballesteros]?" he asked, sitting at dinner, a glass of beer in front of him. "What books do you collect? Do you know that there have been 20 Volvo Masters and only one person has played in them all. Do you know who that is?" The look on his face gave the game away. "Miguel Angel Jimenez has played in 19 but I have played in 20."

He talked about Gaynor, his new wife, who has four children of her own, and how they get on with the three he has by his first marriage. "There is so much going on you can go spare with it all," he said. "It is super. I was in St Tropez the other day. It's very plush down there. All the cars are open tops. I turn up in a Renault Trafic, a people carrier, with nine children. I counted them in to the vehicle and I counted them out.