Streak goes down, but never count Vijay out
So Vijay Singh is human after all. For the better part of a year he has been a machine, cranking out one perfect shot after another and pocketing the kind of big money that might even impress a Liberal cabinet minister. His remarkable streak of a dozen PGA Tour top-10s in a row came to an end yesterday at the Buick Invitational when he missed his first cut since March of last year when he went home early from the Players Championship.
That said, this hardly is the time for Tiger Woods to rest easy on his world No. 1 ranking. Yesterday was a hiccup for Singh, but the Fijian smells blood. He has Tiger in his sights and doesn't intend to rest until he has reeled him in.
While he was proud of his streak, one exceeded in modern times only by Jack Nicklaus, Singh has never been a guy who cared much about top-10s.
"I've got to win more tournaments to get to No. 1," Singh said this week. "Finishing top 10 is not going to get me there."
So, what will it take to get him there?
"If I keep playing like I'm playing now, I feel I have a shot, maybe not this year, but in a year or two."
Even to the players themselves, the world ranking system is something unfathomable, like nuclear physics or the NBA salary cap.
Points are awarded at tournaments all over the world, based upon the strength of field. The four major championships are worth the most points (50) to the winner. All other tournaments are scaled down from there.
The system is based on a rolling two-year accumulation (and erosion) of points. Points accumulated gradually are taken away over eight three-month periods, so a player must continue to play at a high level to maintain his points level as past triumphs erode away.
The ranking system is based upon an average number of points per event entered. Woods is averaging 13.51 points per event entered. Singh is at 10.43.
What could make this fight for No. 1 even more interesting is that the various golf organizations are considering a change to the rules to consider only a player's top 50 tournaments over that two-year period, which would be to Singh's favour because he seldom takes a week off.
Singh actually has more aggregate points than Woods right now because he plays so much more often. His total of 605 points is divided by 58, the number of events he has played the past two years. Woods' total of 540 points is divided by 40.
If Singh's average was computed on his top 50 tournaments, he probably would be within a point or so of overtaking Woods.
Most of the players on tour don't need to look at a list of numbers to determine that Singh has closed the gap dramatically. Indeed, there are many who believe that Singh is the player performing the best in the world and that top-10 string proves it. That doesn't mean they believe that Singh is fundamentally a better player than Woods but that he's just playing better right now. Yet, because he plays so often, he is penalized.
"What hurts Vijay is that he plays so many tournaments," Jesper Parnevik said. "The tour encourages us to play more. They want us to play more and a lot of guys have started to play more. Then, they get hurt by it in the world ranking."
If that rule is changed, then it might have the added benefit of forcing Woods to leave home and play more often. Last year, he played nine fewer events on the PGA Tour than Singh.
"I don't know how you can stay mentally fresh," Woods said this week. "I can't. I play a limited schedule so that when I do play, I'm ready to play. Vijay is able to maintain that high for a long period of time. If I did that, I would break down because I would start losing my focus."
Singh is entered in next week's Nissan Open in Los Angeles, where Mike Weir will try to defend his 2003 title. But earlier this week, Singh suggested that if he played poorly at Torrey Pines, he would take that as a signal that he should take a week of rest.
"Rest" is a relative term. It will probably mean that Singh will hit balls for "only" four or five hours a day, rather than eight.
"It's what I do," he said recently. "I'm always searching to improve and the only way I know is to go looking in the dirt."
Who's to argue? Those divots could take him all the way to the top of the pile.
