Players all set to sing Vijay's praises

TWELVE months ago, Vijay Singh controversially lost out to Tiger Woods in the battle for the 2003 PGA Tour players’ player-of-the-year award.

Woods clinched the Jack Nicklaus trophy for an unprecedented fifth consecutive season, despite failing to capture a major for the first time since 1998.

Singh, the game’s hottest player over the previous three months with two wins and nothing worse than a tie for sixth in his last eight PGA Tour starts, had to settle for ending 2003 atop the US money list.

This year, however, has been different and should Singh not be named next Monday as the tour’s player of the year for 2004, a stewards’ inquiry would have to be launched.

The 41-year-old Fijian has produced one of the greatest seasons in PGA Tour history, with nine wins in 29 outings. Woods was a shadow of the player who ruled the golfing world in 2000.

While Woods failed to clinch a strokeplay title on the US Tour for the first time since turning professional in 1996, Singh was unstoppable.

The Fijian, who ended Woods’s five-year reign as world number one in September, became the first player to earn more than $10 million in a season. He sealed his third career major in the US PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and ended in a tie for ninth at the season-ending Tour Championship, boosting his 2004 earnings to $10,905,166.

He produced 18 top-10 finishes in 29 tour starts in one of the greatest individual years in the game’s history.

Although Woods, Masters winner Phil Mickelson and WGC-Amex champion Ernie Els are also in the running, the naming in a week of Singh should be a formality. Woods, Mickelson and Els have been impressed by his season.

“He’s had one of the great years. He’s played some just unbelievable golf,” Woods said.

Mickelson added: “His year has been sensational, amazing.”

Els said: “Vijay has had a great year. He’s worked really hard and is deserving every moment of it.”