Colin Montgomgerie celebrates his 49th birthday today playing the third round of the BMW International Open in the company of fellow Scot Peter Whiteford.

Monty was met by BMW’s Marco Kaussler after his round of a level par 72 and presented with a bottle of champagne.

And given Monty ended his round with three bogeys in his last five holes the champers was just the tonic for the Scot.

However it also exactly a year to the day until Monty makes his European Senior Tour debut and the Dunning golfer confessed he’s already targeted winning the 2013 Senior Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

BMWs Marco Kaussler presents Monty with a bottle of bubbly on the occasion of the Scot's 49th birthday. (Photo - www.golfbytourmiss.com)

After finishing runner-up five times in Major Championships, Montgomerie is hoping he can finally make his Major breakthrough in Southport and join iconic names such as Gary Player, Bernhard Langer and Tom Watson on the Senior Open trophy.

“The Senior Open Championship will be my first event as a senior and I am looking forward to it,” he said.

“I am going to play the Senior Open and then see how I feel about playing as a senior. I think if I can go there and get the good feelings back and the confidence of being able to win then I will play more of the events.

“It might be a year away but I know that it will come around quickly. It feels like only yesterday that I was really in my prime,, in the mid-1990s when I was winning a lot of events and really doing well. That does not seem that long ago so the next year will fly by and all of a sudden we will be at Birkdale for the Senior Open.

“I do think the Senior Tour is a great tour for players my age. How many sports give you the opportunity to become a rookie at the age of 50? That will be a nice feeling – to be one of the young ones and I hope that brings the confidence and belief that I can win the golf tournament.

“That is a feeling that has faded recently and it is something you really need if you want to compete at this level. I think it would be fair to say that when I was in my prime and winning tournaments and Orders of Merit that I had the feeling I was going to win every week.

“I think every sportsman playing at the highest level has to have an element of that because you have to. You have to believe that you are almost unbeatable because everyone else at that level thinks that way. I think that mindset is a real key element to winning and maintaining a level of performance that will keep you at the top.

“If I get that feeling back I will play more of the senior events. I will know as soon as I get there if the feeling is right, and I hope it is. I’d love to win a few of those big tournaments because they are great events and have so many great players playing.”