Els angered by critics who say Woods' rivals are below par

ERNIE ELS last night hit back at criticism of the standard of rivals to Tiger Woods' dominance of the game.

Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer recently attacked the quality of Woods’ nearest challengers, with Nicklaus describing the world number one’s US Masters victory this year “a piece of cake” as all his rivals imploded in the final round. Els was one of those to crumble when he triple-bogeyed the 13th, but feels his efforts and those of certain colleagues were under-appreciated.

“That was my point,” the double US Open winner said yesterday after his second practice round at Muirfield, venue for this week’s Open championship. “If it wasn’t for one guy, I think (Phil) Mickelson would have had two or three majors by now, David (Duval) would probably have won the Masters a couple of times, and who knows, maybe I could have won four or five.