Tiger makes his intentions clear

Golf: In one fell swoop, after the first real big one of the season, some of golf's big guys left La Costa having made a statement of one kind or another.

Tiger Woods - "My whole goal is to basically prepare and get ready for the Masters," he matter-of-factly stated after pocketing $1.2 million as winner of the Accenture Matchplay championship - secured his first title of the year, and third-placed Darren Clarke, who collected $530,000 and precious world ranking points, was elevated to first in the European Tour Order of Merit, and 10th on the US Tour's equivalent.

For both, the cycle goes on. By Thursday, having traversed 12 time zones, Woods and Clarke - and another star-studded field including Ernie Els, who missed out on La Costa, and Padraig Harrington - will be teeing it up again in the Dubai Desert Classic at the Emirates.

This week's tournament boasts the highest Irish representation on tour so far this season with Clarke and Harrington, now third in the European money list, joined by Paul McGinley, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy, Graeme McDowell and Damien McGrane.

Having decided to miss out on last year's tournament because of security risks posed by the conflict in Iraq, Woods has kept his promise - along with his buddy Mark O'Meara - to return to the Emirates, where he finished tied runner-up with Harrington to Thomas Bjorn in 2001.

Woods, who secured a 3 and 2 win over Davis Love in the final of the Matchplay at La Costa, where he has now won 12 consecutive matches over a two-year span, moved from 18th to third on the US Tour money list behind Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson after his first win of the season. In three outings, he has not failed to finish outside the top-10.

"He's obviously the best at what he does, and that shows even more in matchplay," Love said. "He likes it narrowed down to where he knows who he has got to beat. He's a very good matchplayer."

For the world number one, victory was another step in his season's game plan. While Singh and Mickelson were making their statements early in the season, Woods was taking a break.

"I don't start the year playing each and every week early. I played the Mercedes and I took my little break. I'm trying to have an off season in there. You know, my whole goal is to basically prepare and get ready for The Masters.

"That's one of the reasons why I don't see how you can play that much early in the year without wearing yourself out, for me. I did. I did it before in the past. I remember how I used to do it back in '97, '98, '99. I played too much too early.

"I don't know about a statement (with this win). I'm playing the same way as I did the end of last year. I'm playing solid golf. I've had top-10s in every tournament I've played in this year, so I'm very positive about that."

In Sunday's 36-hole final, Love was forced to endure some heckling from behind the ropes. An incident on the 20th hole seemed to affect Love, where he hit his tee-shot well left of the green on the 192-yard par three, and he eventually missed an 11-footer for par that enabled Woods to square the match.

"I wasn't going to play any more until somebody got thrown out, because he had already cost me the match," insisted Love. The heckling continued until the 23rd hole when Love asked that the fan, who had been identified, be removed.

Woods said he gets similar treatment on a regular basis, but that you have to not let it affect you when playing. "That's the whole idea. If you're a baseball player and you're on the mound, you don't ever want to look up in the stands if somebody is yelling at you because they know they've got you. You just keep your head down, keep moving along.

"Of course it annoys you at the time, but you don't ever show that it does annoy you; just go ahead and move on and keep playing. If it does distract you, back off. Sometimes you've got to vent, sometimes you've got to go over to the bag, put your club back, start all over again.

"But the main thing is get refocused. That's the hard part. It throws you off your natural rhythm because you're playing in rhythm. You could see Davis was in his rhythm and that tee-shot kind of threw him off. He hit a fat pull down to the front part of the green, but you could tell it affected his rhythm a little bit."

Clarke beat Australian Stephen Leaney in the play-off for third place and the world ranking points were almost as precious as the sizeable cheque he collected.

"The positive thing is that it was the best I swung the club all week - it was nice to finish on a positive note," insisted Clarke, who will attempt to maintain the form in Dubai.

He has moved to the top of the European Tour Order of Merit and also moved from 23rd to 10th on the US Tour money list.