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For
the first time in more than five years, Tiger Woods became reacquainted
with life away from the number one spot in the official world rankings.

The 14-times major
champion was deposed by Britain’s Lee Westwood when the world rankings
were released on Monday, but Woods can return to the top should he win
this week’s WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.

For the moment,
though, the 34-year-old American is well aware that a mediocre 2010
season without a single victory would eventually result in one outcome.

“As far as the
ranking is concerned, yeah I’m not ranked number one,” Woods told
reporters on Monday. “In order to do that, you have to win tournaments
and I didn’t win this year.” Speaking after he had played an exhibition
match with Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa at Yokohama Country Club, Woods said he
was adjusting to not being the top-ranked player.

“As far as emotions
go, it is what it is,” he added. “You have to win in order to become
number one in the world and you have to win a lot to maintain it. This
is the way it goes.” Woods had been the game’s leading player for the
previous 281 weeks, and a total of 623 in his career, before he was
finally toppled by Englishman Westwood.

The American’s
private life unraveled amid sordid revelations of serial philandering
at the end of last year, an unexpected chain of events that led to the
break-up of his marriage and erratic tournament golf.

His aura of
invincibility on the course was severely dented and he ended his 2010
PGA Tour campaign without a victory for the first time since joining
the circuit in late 1996.

In many ways, it
was something of an anti-climax when Woods was dethroned by Westwood,
who was at home nursing a lingering calf injury after competing only
three times since he finished second at the British Open in July.

The Englishman
became only the fourth player to become world number one without
winning a major title, and many feel third-ranked German Martin Kaymer
is a worthier candidate after clinching this year’s U.S. PGA
Championship.

Model of consistency

Although Westwood
has been a model of consistency over the last two years with four
finishes of third or better in the majors, Kaymer has triumphed six
times in that period, including four victories on the European Tour
this season.

“Kaymer should be
number one,” Tiger Woods’s former swing coach Butch Harmon, who now
works with fourth-ranked Phil Mickelson among others, told Reuters on
Monday.

“If Phil had taken
half the year off like Westwood did, would he be number one? Did
Westwood win a major this year, or any year? I think not.” Asked if he
was surprised Woods had stayed at number one for as long as he did
during 2010, Harmon replied: “Yeah, he didn’t play (for much of the
year) so he stayed at number one. The system sucks.” Whatever the
faults of the ranking system, the battle for the label of world number
one is likely to be extremely volatile over the coming months and
Westwood could be deposed by any of three players by the end of this
week.

“All of the top
four in the rankings, Lee, Tiger, Martin and Phil can go number one
with victory at the HSBC,” Ian Barker, the European Tour’s director of
information services who manages the official rankings, told Reuters.

“And the situation
will remain very fluid next week when Lee, Martin and Phil compete at
the Barclays (Singapore Open) and Tiger defends the JBWere (Australian)
Masters.” Although Woods has clearly struggled with his game for much
of the year, his recent work with new swing coach Sean Foley seems to
be paying off.

He produced his
best golf of the season in the last-day singles at the Ryder Cup in
Wales, where he covered 15 holes in a sizzling nine under par to
complete a 4&3 win over Italian Francesco Molinari.

“I like where my
game is headed,” said Woods who will be competing in three more events
before the end of the year. “I like the pieces of it and how they’re
falling into place.

“I’ve done some pretty good work with Sean and I just took a month
off after the Ryder Cup so it was nice to get that break. It was a
long, frustrating year but in the end it turned out that everything’s
headed in a positive direction now.”