Tiger Beat: Vijay Singh New No. 1 Golfer

By Stephen M. Silverman

09/07/2004 at 09:00 AM EDT

Tiger Woods's 5-year-plus reign as the world's top golfer ended Monday in Norton, Mass., where Vijay Singh won a head-to-head match with the once-unbeatable champ.

Singh shot a 69 to beat Woods and Adam Scott by three strokes in the Deutsche Bank Championship, clinching the No. 1 ranking in the world with a sixth victory of the year (and nearly $7.9 million in earnings to date). Woods, 29, had been first for a record 264 consecutive weeks, the Associated Press reports.

"Finally it's turned into my favor," said the Fiji-born, 41-year-old Singh, who birdied three of the last four holes to win the $900,000 first prize in the competition. "I've worked pretty hard for this. I finally achieved what I wanted to do starting at the beginning of the year.

"It was a good win, as well. Coming down the stretch got pretty tight there, but I got focused and I played pretty good coming down."

Also noted this weekend, as has been the case for the past few weeks: not at Woods's side was his Swedish model fiancee, Elin Nordegren. The two notoriously private people are said to have split, though there has been no official word of confirmation.