Montgomerie - second-placed finish at St Andrews.

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Colin Montgomerie will head into next month's USPGA championship certain he can finally end his major drought.

Montgomerie has moved up to 22nd in the world rankings following his second place in the Open championship at St Andrews.

That represents a rise of 59 places this season and means he has already surpassed his original target of being inside the top 25 by the end of the year.

And the 42-year-old Scot has now targeted a place inside the top 10, buoyed by his performance in finishing second to Tiger Woods on Sunday.

"It's very encouraging to know I can do this still," said Montgomerie, who won the biggest cheque of his career, £430,000, after a final round 72 over the Old Course.

"It is exciting to get up the world rankings to somewhere where I feel more comfortable and I look forward to more majors with added incentive. I want to prove I can compete at this level.

"I'm not saying I can get back to number two in the world where I was in 1997, but I feel I have the talent to get back into the top 10.

"I gave a great effort and I'll be starting the next major full of confidence that I'm capable of doing well."

Montgomerie has always fared better in American majors than the Open, particularly the US Open and USPGA.

He finished third on his US Open debut in 1992 at Pebble Beach and lost a play-off to Ernie Els two years later at Oakmont. The former European number one suffered another play-off defeat to Steve Elkington in the 1995 USPGA at Riviera, and was second to Els again in the US Open at Congressional in 1997.

Montgomerie has played just one major championship at Baltusrol, venue for the USPGA from August 11-14, finishing 33rd in the 1993 US Open.

But the set-up on such courses, with penal rough which favours straight hitters, suits Montgomerie's game and until Sunday his best recent performance in a major had been finishing sixth in the 1999 USPGA at Medinah.

It is all a far cry from just a few months ago when, despite his heroics in the Ryder Cup, Montgomerie finished 2004 ranked a lowly 81st in the world and with his personal life in turmoil following his divorce from wife Eimear after 14 years.

For the second year in succession he had finished outside the top 20 on the Order of Merit, enjoying just four top 10s all season and failing even to qualify for the US Open.

He also failed to qualify for the US Masters this season and became embroiled in a long-running rules controversy following his incorrect drop in the Indonesian Open in March.

"I had a chat to myself, 'What am I doing here, what's going on, what's happening, what do I want to do?"' Montgomerie revealed.

"I'm 81 in the world, you can go one way or the other. The one thing I had to do was stop the slide, that was number one. Once I did that I could start to think about going forward.

"I missed out on the Masters this year and US Open last year, two tournaments I didn't really like to watch on television.

"It was a kick up the backside and my first tournament in Singapore I came out and shot 65 and that put me on the map again. That put me on the scoreboards and leaderboards.

"I'm much more comfortable being on the leaderboards than off it, a number of players wouldn't say that but I am."