Golf's Great Divide

Dusk is creeping up the pine trees at the Sawgrass Players Club, but Vijay Singh isn't heading for the 19th hole. After shooting a 5-under-par 67 in the first round of the Players championship, the world's top-ranked golfer ambles over to the driving range, pulls an iron out of his bag and, like a windmill, whacks 10 balls straight down the fairway. He switches irons and hits 40 more. Autograph seekers would be advised to go elsewhere. "I'm not going to stop," he tells his caddie. After 80 more shots, sunlight has dropped into the cup. "That's what I do," Singh, 42, told TIME after his workout. "I go through my routine, and that's my routine. And I'm not going to change it for anybody."

There isn't much doubt about what Singh is shooting at. In 2000 Tiger Woods started piling up major tournament victories, obliterating one field after another. He needed a foil. Now he has two. Singh the swing machine helped bring Woods, 29, crashing to earth last year, winning an astonishing nine tournaments and a record $10.9 million in prize money to pass Tiger in the world rankings. Meanwhile, fan fave Phil Mickelson, the perennial bridesmaid who was 0 for 42 as a pro in majors (the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA championship), won the 2004 Masters and has climbed to the fourth slot in the rankings.

What makes the Woods-Singh-Mickelson trio so spicy is that the players are not exactly three amigos. Although they publicly deny any feuds, Woods and Mickelson, and Woods and Singh, definitely have a history. Their competition has spawned an angry buzz that swirls around the pro tour like bees at a picnic. "If you're shooting to be No. 1 in the world, it's a lonely thing," says veteran golfer Kirk Triplett. "There's not a lot of friendliness when you're trying to beat a guy's brains in." Others are even more direct. "They rub each other the wrong way, sure," says one player. "A lot of it is arrogance. Some of it is condescension. I guarantee you they want to beat the other guy just because he is the other guy."

With Woods winning two tournaments this year and briefly reclaiming the top spot, each of golf's Big Three looks primed for the sport's biggest prize, a green jacket at the Masters, which tees off on Thursday in Augusta, Ga. "Listen, there's not a dime's worth of golf difference between any of these guys right now," says Brandel Chamblee, a PGA player and commentator for the Golf Channel. "We didn't want parity at a mediocre level. We have parity at a superstar level. I mean, what else do you want?" Only third-ranked Ernie Els could spoil this spitting contest, because the South African, known as the Big Easy, is so damned amiable.