Off the tee: Looking for a high five

Tiger Woods will be chasing yet another record when he tees off at the Bay Hill Club in Orlando, Florida, today.

The world No 1 has won the Bay Hill Invitational for the past four years, distancing the field by 11 shots last year. Nobody on any of the major professional tours has won the same tournament five times in a row.

Four-time winners are thin on the ground in the men's game and outside the highly competitive modern era.

In 1872, in the 12th year of the British Open, Tom Morris jnr won for the fourth consecutive time. In all the years since, no one has ever won more than that.

Playing on three rounds on the 12-hole Prestwick course, Morris won in 1868, 1869 and 1870, which earned him permanent possession of the championship prize, which was then a red leather belt.

The championship was not held in 1871 because there was no prize, but the Open was resumed in 1872. The trophy was a silver claret jug, which remains the prize to this day.

In his try for five in a row, Morris tied for third place, four strokes behind Tom Kidd, when the Open was held for the first time over 36 holes on the 18-hole St Andrews course.

On the US PGA Tour, two players have won the same tournament for four consecutive years. Walter Hagen won the PGA Championship from 1924 to 1927, but on his fifth try, in 1928, he lost to Leo Diegel, 2 and 1, in the quarter-finals of the-then matchplay competition.

Gene Sarazen won the Miami Open four times from 1926 but did not enter the fifth event.

No one has ever won four in succession on the European Tour, but there have been two in women's golf - Laura Davies (Phoenix, 1994-1997) and Karrie Webb (Australian Ladies Masters, 1998-2001). Davies finished six strokes behind in 1998 and Webb lost on the fourth playoff hole to Annika Sorenstam in 2002.

The fifth-time jinx seems to hold good in New Zealand, too. Andy Shaw won four New Zealand Opens in a row from 1929 before being beaten by Ted Douglas at Titirangi in 1933. Shaw won again in 1934 and 1936.

Shaw also won four New Zealand PGA titles from 1931, only to fall to Alex Murray in 1935.

The redoubtable Australians Kel Nagle and Peter Thomson each won three NZ Opens in a row but never made it a four-peat and Nagle also had a hat-trick of NZPGA victories only to be stopped by John Lister in 1976.

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Critics of the foreign domination of the American women's tour should have a field day after the opening event, won by Englishwoman Karen Stupples at the weekend.

Only one American, Stacy Prammanasudh, who was fourth, finished in the top 10. There were six Koreans, two Britons and a Thai.