Residence: Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida
DOB: 22/02/1963 |
Vijay Singh is without doubt one of the best golfers ever to play the game. His enormous achievements are sometimes overlooked because of his fractious relations with the media – he’s known as a bit of a misery who would rather spend hours on the driving range than court publicity. But with career prize money of over $60m in the bank – and you can probably double that with his endorsements – we don’t suppose Vijay is losing much sleep over it. Born in Fiji of Sikh ancestry, his father was an aircraft technician who also taught golf. The family was of modest means, and Vijay often had to resort to hitting coconuts for practice. He ended up teaching golf in Borneo, using all his spare time to practice and in 1998 managed to gain entry to the European Tour. The following year he won his first tournament - the Volvo Open in Italy. Since then, his rise up the golf ranks has been meteoric. In 2004 alone, he won an astonishing nine times picking up $11m in prize money. He has won 19 times since turning 40 – and has three Majors to his name – the PGA in 1998 and 2004, and the Masters in 2000. Our biog photo of Vijay using his Cleveland HiBore XL driver was taken at the Doral Resort in Miami during the World Golf Championships in March 2007 where he finished tied 11th. |