Shark attacks players with no bite

Greg Norman believes too many players are conceding defeat to Tiger Woods before they tee up against the American star.

"Right now he is on a roll," the former world number one said in Sydney yesterday, where he was preparing for the Australian Open. "Sure, he hits the ball longer, but he's no different physically. It's not that he's that much better than the top 20 or 30 players in the world."

After Woods won his 10th title of the year in last week's World Cup event in Kuala Lumpur - and his fifth in his last six starts - Mark O'Meara started talking about when the 23-year-old would overtake Jack Nicklaus' 18 major titles.

"I find it a little strange when you hear other great players talk like they're running for second," said Norman (44).

"When you're king of the hill, everybody should be trying to knock you off and right now he is king of the hill," added Norman, who plans to return to playing the US tour full-time for the next two years after undergoing shoulder surgery 18 months ago.

Norman, whose fertile business mind helped him to earn US$24 million last year, also attacked the US PGA Tour for "stealing" his idea for an elite world golf series.

He said the US PGA's move to set up a series of tournaments for the world's top players was a direct copy of an idea he put forward in 1994.

Norman was accused of trying to set up a breakaway tour when he suggested the top 40 players meet eight times year in a series of elite events. The US PGA opposed the idea.

Now a version of Norman's project is in place with the US PGA running a series of world championship events restricted to the leading 50 or 60 players in the world.

"It was a good idea wasn't it?" said Norman. "I'm still stung by it. The treatment I received during that time was so unfair. For six or seven months of my life I didn't deserve the crap that I got. They took someone else's idea and ran with it."

Norman said his idea was scotched because the US Tour wanted to run world golf.

"It's a control thing. Pretty much what the US wants to do, the US is going to do."

Meanwhile, Davis Love insists he could never take the place of Payne Stewart despite standing in for the US Open champion in the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, which started in Hawaii early this morning. Stewart was due to fill one of the four berths in this year's tournament, which features the winners of the season's Major titles.

But when he was killed in a plane crash last month organisers asked Love, a close friend of Stewart, to play instead, and the Masters runner-up had to think long and hard before deciding to accept.

"I'm not trying to replace him," said Love, whose father - also a professional golfer - died in a plane crash himself in 1988.

"His spot will never be taken. None of the four can replace Payne. Hopefully while we're here we can focus on him and carry on his mission for his love of the game."

Love opens his bid for the $400,000 first prize against Masters champion Jose-Maria Olazabal, while US PGA holder Woods takes on British Open winner Paul Lawrie.

Lawrie has had a couple of days to get to know the 6,959-yard seaside course, but still knows he will have his work cut out to win through to tomorrow's final.

The Scot, who will face Woods on a regular basis next season when he joins the lucrative US Tour, said: "All I can do is try to play well against him."