Woods stretches lead at head of Big Five

British Open champion Tiger Woods has lengthened his lead in the world rankings after his triumph at St Andrews but says he still has four serious rivals at the top of the sport.

Woods has now won 10 of the four major tournaments in the golfing calendar to lie third in the all-time table behind Walter Hagen (11) and Jack Nicklaus (18).

So far this year, his revamped swing has taken him to a fourth win in the US Masters, second place in the US Open and a second success at the Old Course in the British Open.

After Vijay Singh overtook him in the rankings at the end of last year, American Woods (16.24) is comfortably back at the top of the pecking order, four points clear of the Fijian (12.19) and nearly seven ahead of Ernie Els (9.36).

That is his biggest advantage since mid-March 2004 but he quashed suggestions that he lacks a top-class rival to keep his game and his competitive instinct finely honed.

"Right now there's a generation where there's about five guys - there's myself, Singh, Mickelson, Els and Goosen," he told a news conference after his five-shot victory at 14 under par (274).

"Look at how many tournaments we've won over the last five years around the world.

"It's pretty impressive to look at how many we've won as a group. Right now any one of us can win any tournament that we enter.

"I think that's the fun of it. Look at the leaderboard where you know they're going to have some of us up there of the five. This year we had three (Woods, Singh and Goosen who were tied fifth)."

Between the five, they have won 19 majors with world number three Els winning three, second-ranked Singh three, fifth-rated Goosen two and world number four Mickelson one.

None of them, though, have been able to match Woods consistently as prolific major winners whose only modern true counterpart can be found in the women's game, Annika Sorenstam.

The Swede has also won two majors this year to take her tally to nine overall.

After her successes, she always texts Woods on his mobile to tease him about it.

Will he now follow suit?

"Oh yeah," grinned Woods.

"There'll be a text."