Woods praying for consistent reign

ERNIE ELS and Vijay Singh are right on his heels and could overtake him on Sunday night but Tiger Woods has now equalled Greg Norman's record of 331 successive weeks as the world number one.

It's an amazing achievement in an era when the worldwide strength in depth is unparalleled. Oddly enough, Tiger didn't seem all that impressed by the statistic at Whistling Straits yesterday as he continued his preparation for the US PGA Championship beginning tomorrow. He recalled the prime of both Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson when there wasn't any ranking scheme in place.

However, he did allow: "As for the '90s up to here, it's nice to have been as consistent as I've been. That's one thing I'm very proud of. It's the only way you can stay up there as long as I have. It was just the same with Greg. Every week he would seem to make the top ten and that's if he played poorly. If he played well, he won."