Ernie gunning for top spot

Vijay Singh had better enjoy being world number one now - because Ernie Els is hell-bent on making his stay there a brief one.

After winning another £1m (€1.4m) and a record-breaking sixth World Match Play title at Wentworth, Els made it crystal clear that there are no shortage of targets left for him.

Adding to his three majors - two US Opens and one Open - is top of the list and the South African wants nothing more than to win the Masters and US PGA to become just the sixth player in golf history to complete what has become known as a career Grand Slam.

But that has to wait for next year.

What Els can still accomplish this season is to knock Singh off the top spot in the world rankings.

For the first time in its history the Match Play championship carried ranking points and with Singh going out in the first round to Bernhard Langer last week and finishing only 18th in the dunhill links championship before that - Els was seventh - the gap between them has closed.

Not surprisingly after 138 holes in four days, Els is taking this week off. But then he flies back across the Atlantic to lock horns with the Fijian again in the Chrysler Championship in Florida and then the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

Els has been number one three times, but only for nine weeks in total and the last of them was in June 1998.

To regain the position in the next month would really make Els look back fondly on 2004 after all.

That looked unlikely when he had near-misses in three of the four majors and blew the other with a closing 80.

But first came his victory in the American Express world championship at Mount Juliet in County Kilkenny and then he broke the Wentworth record set by Gary Player in 1973 and matched by Seve Ballesteros in 1991. And he did it on his 35th birthday.

"I tell you one thing," he said. "Three weeks ago I was complaining about all kinds of stuff and now I've won twice in three weeks.

"So I'm definitely eating my words at the moment. It's turning out to be a great season." And it could get even better yet.

As it could for Lee Westwood and Padraig Harrington, the two Ryder Cup stars who suffered real misfortune in their bids to stop Els defending the trophy last week.

Westwood is still looking for his first victory of the year after going down with a chest infection and virus.

The 31-year-old from Worksop began the tournament with a sore throat and cold, but after beating Open champion Todd Hamilton, US Open champion Retief Goosen and another member of the Ryder Cup team in Miguel Angel Jimenez he really started suffering.

"I slept terribly and kept feeling like I had no balance," he said. "It's in my ears as well.

"If I had been on form I would have had a really good chance. I think the best thing I can do now is get home to my bed as quickly as possible. It's the end of a long season and I feel quite run down to be honest. Today just sapped all my energy."

Westwood had comfortably out-scored Els on the first three days, but could not take advantage of a real mixed bag from the Johannesburg golfer in the final - three eagles and five birdies, but also seven bogeys.

Harrington was Els' semi-final opponent and arrived for the match with his right thumb badly bruised and still sufficiently tender so that he could not grip the club properly.

The Dubliner had bashed it against a tree trunk playing a shot against Thomas Levet the previous day and he, like Westwood, will wonder what might have been had he felt 100%.

The pair both hope to be back firing on all cylinders at next week's Volvo Masters in Spain. They will start amongst the favourites with Els and Retief Goosen, first and second on the Order of Merit, away in America.