Singh: I love being number one
05/04/2005 - 16:40:53For the first time in his life Vijay Singh enters a major championship this week as the world’s number one player – and he admits he is finally at ease in the spotlight.
The 42-year-old Fijian is riding a crest of a wave he hopes can carry him this Sunday to his second Masters title and his second successive major.
Singh toppled Tiger Woods last September a month after his play-off win in the US PGA championship and is back there now after Woods briefly dethroned him in February.
“I’m pretty comfortable with the position I’m in,” he said. “I don’t have any worries.
“I’m enjoying my game right now. What can be better – I’m here at the Masters, the best player in the world right now and I’m ready to go win another one.”
And for the icing on the cake Singh even believes he has a better relationship with the media.
“Once I reached number one last year I thought ‘wow – this is it’. But then I won again straight away and it changed the whole outlook.
“I increased my lead and I said ‘well, let’s see how long I can keep this and see if anyone is going to catch me’.
“The more the week went on the more confident I became. I just wanted to hang onto as long as I could.
“Then this year the focus started to be different. I started thinking that if I play badly I’m going to lose my number one spot. That took away the focus of what my principle was – to go out and win tournament.
“I think it’s good to be number one, but my direction here is not to keep the number one spot, but to win a major. The Masters.
“I love being number one. There’s no hiding that. It’s the biggest achievement of anyone’s career and something I can always look back on, but I’m trying to win tournaments.”
Asked about the mental side of the game Singh revealed the important of Eastern philosophy to him.
“I’ve worked with Joe Parent, who wrote “Zen Golf”, two or three years ago, but he probably learned some from me and I learned some from him. It was kind of a give-and-take thing.
“I read a lot of psychology books. It’s not just thinking positive or routine. It’s how you breathe and how you walk and how you approach things. I love following Eastern philosophy.”
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