Golf: Another green jacket for Woods - full report

Tiger Woods tonight joined Nick Faldo and Jack Nicklaus as the only men to make a successful defence of the Masters at Augusta.

But it was more the blunders of others than his own undoubted brilliance which took the 26-year-old world number one to a three-stroke win over Retief Goosen the seventh major of his career and sixth victory in the last 10 majors.

Back at the place where last year he completed golf’s first-ever clean sweep of the biggest four titles in the game, Woods fired a closing 71 for a 12 under par total of 276.

Now only five players are ahead of him in the all-time list and on this evidence it might only be two Nicklaus with 18 and Walter Hagen with 11 by the end of this season.

The 1997 Masters, his first major as a professional, will be remembered for him becoming the youngest-ever winner and doing so by a record 12-shot margin and with a record 18 under par aggregate.

Last year will be recalled for his ‘‘Tiger Slam’’ of the majors and for the way he held off David Duval and Phil Mickelson when it came to the crunch. This year’s event will go down as the one handed to him on a plate.

First Retief Goosen, the joint overnight leader, had three three-putts in an outward 39 to fall out of the hunt.

Then Ernie Els, having climbed into a tie for second place, crashed to a triple bogey eight at the 510-yard 13th, twice going into Rae’s Creek.

And then Vijay Singh, the one remaining challenger unless Woods self-destructed over the closing stretch, followed the South African into the same stretch of the creek when three behind.

But that was only a portent of what was to follow. The Fijian, winner two years ago, got out of the hole with a par five, but then bogeyed the 14th and at the long 15th, quite incredibly, twice pitched into the lake and walked off with a quadruple bogey nine.

Woods was not error-free, three-putting himself at the fifth and bogeying the 11th as well. But those mistakes were offset by birdies at the second, third and sixth, where he chipped in from 20 feet.

After the others had shot themselves in the foot, he calmly birdied the 15th to move five clear and a bogey at the 17th was no cause for concern.

His walk up the last the hole lengthened to 465 yards to provide a more fitting finale was just a victory march.