The 41-year-old blamed poor putting for falling from joint 15th into a tie for 60th.

And apart from ending his bid for a second win in the £2.2m (€3.2m) event, it increases the possibility – fast becoming a probability – of him needing a Ryder Cup wild card for the first time in his career.

“I hit the ball fine, but my green work was not so professional, to say the least,” he commented. “Lose a bit of confidence and the hole gets very small sometimes.

“I’ll try to forget it, score in the 60s tomorrow and take some confidence into Troon.”

Bogeys at the fourth and seventh were followed by a birdie two holes later, but he then triple-bogeyed the 415-yard 15th, getting into trouble off the tee and then three-putting from short range.

Montgomerie has qualified automatically for each of his six Ryder Cups. In fact, he has never finished lower than fourth in the points table.

But he is currently 24th in the race with only eight more events to come – the first of them next week’s Open Championship.

Captain Bernhard Langer is thought likely to select him as one of his two personal picks if necessary, but that probably does depend both on him showing some form in the remaining time and on who else is outside the top 10.

At the moment, Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, Jesper Parnevik, Luke Donald and 2002 heroes Paul McGinley and Phillip Price are also requiring a wild card.

After his well-publicised marriage break-up Montgomerie missed the US Open, the first Major he had not played in since 1991, and had to come through a qualifying tournament play-off to earn a spot at his home course Royal Troon.

His current world ranking is at a 13-year low of 71st.