Tour Scene News round-up: In theory, he's still the second best player in the world. Yet, Vijay Singh's play-off win over John Daly at the first hole of sudden-death in the Shell Houston Open - enabling him to become the first player to successfully defend the title - provides further evidence that he is probably the most consistent contender there is in modern golf. You know what? He's also defending his title at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans this week.
A look at Singh's results for 2005 - just as they did a year ago - make impressive reading. So far this season, Singh has played in 12 tournaments on the US Tour. No other top-ranked player plays as frequently and, in fact, only four players - Bo Van Pelt (85th in the money list), Ryan Palmer (95th), Todd Fischer (99th) and Ted Purdy (112th) - have competed more often. Each of that quartet has played 13 times, but none of them with the consistency or the ambition of the 42-year-old Fijian.
In those 12 outings, Singh has missed just one cut - in the Pebble Beach pro-am - but has achieved no fewer than seven top-five finishes, including two wins and two runner-up finishes.
His win in Houston was his second title of the season and earned him $900,000 to pass Tiger Woods for second place on the US Tour's money list with $3,836,413, just $6,043 behind leader Phil Mickelson. It also pushed Singh's career total (on the US Tour) to $40.5 million, second only to Woods in all-time earnings.
The win in Houston gave Singh his 26th title on the US Tour, second only to Harry Cooper (who had 31 wins in the 1920s) in the all-time list of foreign winners in America and, of those successes, 14 have come since he turned 40 - placing him second in that category behind Sam Snead's 17.
Singh's win, though, did come with some help from Daly. After a final round that failed to ignite and finished with him shooting a 70 for 13-under-par total of 275 which allowed him to share the lead with Daly, Singh's par on the first tie hole was sufficient to claim the victory. Daly, who had finished with a 67 decided to hang around the 18th green and wait for Singh to finish rather than warm up on the driving range or the practice green.
"I'm really pleased with the way I hung in there and never gave up," said Singh. "Fortunately for me, no one came out of the pack except for John and kind of made a run at it.
"I'm proud of myself for coming back like that and hitting some shots when I needed to, (but) I wish I could have done better in the play-off." said Daly. Still, his runner-up finish moved the American up 19 places to 34th in the latest world rankings.
"I take it that under pressure that, maybe, I've still got it," added Daly, "I gave myself a chance to win . . . you know, when you're not there a lot (in contention), it's kind of nice to do that. It would be nice to be there a lot like Vijay and Ernie and Tiger and Phil and those guys are, but when you're not there a lot, to be able to pull those shots off makes me feel more confident about it (the future)."
Singh's immediate future is to defend his title in New Orleans, where Padraig Harrington makes his return to competition since missing the cut at the Masters earlier this month. Adam Scott's win in the Johnnie Walker Classic in Beijing allowed the Aussie to leapfrog Harrington into sixth place in the latest world rankings, moving the Dubliner down to seventh. Harrington is scheduled to play this week's event in New Orleans and next week's Wachovia Championship.
With Woods on an extended break since his win at Augusta, Singh is again the top-ranked player in the field with only Harrington, Chris DiMarco and David Toms of the world's top-10 competing in a $5.5 million event that has $990,000 on offer for the winner.
Ominously for everyone else, Singh stated after this latest win that he was "playing better this year than I've done in the past. Last year I had great results obviously, but to me I feel this year I'm more together. My whole game is more together, and if I just start making a few more putts I'll probably win a lot more events. Comparing to last year, I think I'm playing better golf right now."
Darren Clarke's tied-fourth position at Houston earned him $220,000 and moved him from 18th to 12th on the US Tour's money list with earnings of $1,299,120. He is now on a well-earned break until next month's British Masters at the Forest of Arden starts a sequence in Europe that also takes in the Nissan Irish Open at Carton House and the BMW Championship at Wentworth.
Paul McGinley resumes tournament play in this week's BMW Asian Open in China where he will be the joined in the field by Peter Lawrie and Damien McGrane.
HOUSTON OPEN (Redstone GC) Final totals (USA unless stated, par 72): 275 - Vijay Singh (Fij) 64 71 70 70 (Won play-off at first extra hole), John Daly 68 67 73 67 277 - Jose-Maria Olazabal (Spn) 70 67 70 70 278 - Darren Clarke (NIrl) 71 69 71 67, Greg Owen (Eng) 67 69 70 72 279 - Joe Ogilvie 68 67 73 71 280 - Gavin Coles (Aus) 65 69 71 75, Kent Jones 70 71 68 71, Bo Van Pelt 69 68 73 70, Lucas Glover 70 71 72 67, Brian Davis (Eng) 71 69 70 70, Jeff Maggert 67 68 74 71 281 - Billy Andrade 69 69 73 70, Carl Paulson 67 70 74 70, Doug Barron 72 70 71 68, Charles Warren 73 68 71 69
Irish positions in European Tour Order of Merit - 24 P McGinley (6) €202,301; 30 P Lawrie (13) €168,817; 34 P Harrington (4) €142,306; 35 D Clarke (3) €141,343; 52 G McDowell (4) €89,683; 57 D McGrane (12) €83,747; 130 D Higgins (1) €30,000; 160 G Murphy (10) €21,857.
