After a bad start to the year, 25-year-old Tiger Woods has won his last two golf tournaments. In March, he won the Bay Hill tournament and the Players Championship, both in Florida. He has earned more than $2 million this year, and is number one on the US Money List. He has also won the last 3 Majors. Can anyone stop him in the US Masters at Augusta, Georgia this week?

Vijay Singh, a 38-year-old golfer from Fiji, is one man who can. In March, he lost to Tiger Woods by only one hole at the Players Championship. He finished 5th on the Money List in 2000. More importantly, he won the US Masters last year. Only two players have ever won consecutive US Masters tournaments: Jack Nicklaus (1965-66) and Nick Faldo (1989-90). Perhaps Vijay Singh will be the third. He is playing well, and has finished in the top four in his last six tournaments.

Another possible winner is Phil Mickelson. The 3I-year-old American was the first left-handed player to win the US Amateur Championship (1990). He won four tournaments in 2000, and finished 2nd on the Money List to Tiger Woods. He lost to Woods by only one hole at the Bay Hill tournament in March this year.

And there is Joe Durant. This has been a wonderful year for the 37-year-old American. At the beginning of this year he was not even in the top 200 players. But suddenly he has started playing the best golf of his life. He was the first player this year to win consecutive tournaments, and was top of the Money List for two months.

They are three excellent players, but it will be hard to beat Woods. Since he became professional in 1996, he has won 34 tournaments. In 1997, he was the youngest player to win the US Masters. He is also the first golfer since Jack Nicklaus (1972) to win 3 consecutive Majors. But he must be careful. He finished 5th at the US Masters last year. And nobody has won the Florida Players Championship and the US Masters since Sandy Lyle in 1988.

Many people have a feeling that this is Tiger Woods’s year. He is already the best golfer in the world. If he wins the US Masters this week, he will be the first man in history to win 4 consecutive Majors. On Sunday evening, we shall see if he is one of the greatest sportsmen the world has ever known!