Singh's reign under threat from a Tiger

14 April 2012

Tiger Woods has the chance to return to the world No1 spot when he plays in this week's Nissan Open in Los Angeles.

Vijay Singh ended the American's five-year reign at the top of the golf tree last September but missed the cut in the Pebble Beach Pro-am last week and has decided to skip the event at the Riviera Country Club.

To reclaim the position he has held for 334 weeks during his career, Woods has to finish no worse than fourth on his own, or in a three-way tie for third.

The 29-year-old won three weeks ago at the Buick Invitational, and Singh is not the only big rival missing. Both Phil Mickelson, winner of the last two events on the US Tour, and world No3 Ernie Els are resting.

The Nissan is one of the few tournaments Woods has yet to win. He has twice come second, losing a play-off to Billy Mayfair in 1998 and finishing two strokes behind Els 12 months later.

Opposing him this week is a strong band of Europeans - 18 in all. Among them are Greg Owen, who finished third at Pebble Beach, Colin Montgomerie, back on the course where he lost to Steve Elkington in a play-off for the 1995 USPGA title, and Paul Casey.

Casey has been sidelined with a back problem since missing the halfway cut in the Sony Open in Hawaii five weeks ago. He remains deeply affected by the controversy he sparked with anti-American comments last November. The Ryder Cup player admits he has sought professional help to deal with a problem he says "will live with me as a huge source of regret for the rest of my life".

After the win over the US in Detroit last September, Casey claimed in a newspaper interview that for the week of the match "we properly hate them".

That was turned into a tabloid headline of "Americans are stupid. I hate them". Casey was rightly angry about that but he should have seen the damage of adding fuel to the fire by saying that Americans can be "bloody annoying" and criticising the appointment of Tom Lehman as their captain for Ireland next year.

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