All of this talk about VJ and allegations of cheating tweaked my curiousity. Never having heard of this before, I looked it up on the Net. Here is a copy of an article that I located from the St Petersburg Times.
Singh has his game 'in tune'

Improved putting was the key to his '00 Masters win. His '01 results show his confidence in every facet.
By BOB HARIG

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 3, 2001


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AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The longest and most satisfying day of his life was near its conclusion, and the early morning cold of some 15 hours earlier was already a distant memory.

Vijay Singh had held off some of the game's best, including Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and David Duval, to win the Masters, a sweet victory.

As he savored it, Singh could not help but think of the irony: For all his talents in striking a golf ball, he always had been frustrated on the greens, and Augusta National was no place to conquer those demons. At least that was the prevalent theory.

So when he walked out of the Augusta National clubhouse late Sunday a year ago, a green jacket draped over his shoulders and a second major championship on his resume, Singh bellowed to no one in particular: "Kiss my a--, everybody."

A reporter happened to be following. The quotation ran in newspapers and magazines, and many assumed Singh was talking about Augusta National.

Once again, Singh saw himself as misunderstood.

And for a man from Fiji who has traveled the globe chasing his golf dream, who once was exiled to the rain forests of Borneo after being accused of cheating at a tournament, this was a common occurrence.

To set the record straight: Singh's off-the-cuff outburst said in the company of his agent, Clarke Jones, was directed at an unnamed soul who had dared to suggest that Singh could never handle the treacherous greens of Augusta National.

Despite hitting the ball a mile and possessing a brilliant iron game, Singh was considered too inconsistent with the putter to be a factor at the Masters. He said that was once the case.

"Augusta's greens are so severe that if you're not a good putter, you're not going to win," he said.

But Singh got a change in attitude. A change in putting styles didn't hurt, either. Having already gone to a cross-handed grip, Singh switched putters a month before last year's Masters.

Now he uses a medium-length putter that has helped him climb to third on the PGA Tour in putting average. He enters the Masters having finished in the top four in four consecutive tour events, and he posted two victories in Asia. If there were ever a threat to Tiger Woods' dominance, Singh is it.

"I think I'm playing pretty solid right now," said Singh, who finished second to Woods by a stroke at the Players Championship. "I think my whole game is coming around. I'm hitting a lot of good shots off the tees, fairways, putting well. I think the whole game is in tune right now."

Singh, 38, seemingly has spent his life tuning his game. He learned golf from his father, an airplane technician at the airport that sat between his house and a golf club in Fiji. He won his first pro tournament at 21, the Malaysian PGA Championship.

A year later, however, Singh found himself in exile after being accused of cheating at the Indonesian Open. The tournament director ruled that Singh improved his score by one shot before signing his card. Singh maintains there was a misunderstanding. The son of a prominent Indonesian was keeping his card, Singh said, and "for me to say the kid made a mistake, that was wrong, well, you just didn't do that," he told Golf Digest. "I still haven't seen that scorecard. If I changed a number, show me." Nonetheless, Singh was indefinitely suspended from the Asian Tour. And the cloud hovered over him for years.

The suspension was never lifted, and Singh had to find a way to survive. That's when he took a series of club pro jobs in Borneo in the South Pacific.

When he was the resident pro at Keningau Club in the rain forests, Singh and his wife, Ardena, lived in a small one-bedroom apartment. They had to fetch water from a well. Air conditioning was spotty despite 100-degree temperatures. And Singh was paid minimum wage, plus $10 per lesson. Between lessons, Singh spent his waking hours pounding balls in the sun.

"I was trying to think about what I'm going to do next," he said. "That was the lowest point."

Singh has often told the story of how he would gamble -- without his wife's knowledge. Making about $600 per month, plus lessons, Singh got involved in a high stakes golf game one day with some $800 on the line.

The match came down to the last hole, a par 5. Singh knocked his tee shot out of bounds. He then made eagle on his second ball, and his opponent hit two in the water.

"I was thinking, "If I lose, will I get out of here alive?' " Singh said.

By 1987, he had saved enough money to leave Borneo. Singh went to Europe, where he failed to qualify for the European Tour. He spent time as a bouncer at an Edinburgh, Scotland, nightclub, hitting balls by the day. The next year he won the Nigerian Open, made it through European Tour qualifying and steadily climbed the money list.

He won four times in Europe, added six international victories, then came to the United States, where he was the PGA Tour rookie of the year in 1993.

All the while, the mystery remained. Singh remained distrustful of others, not wanting to talk about himself. He would rarely, if ever, address the cheating accusation. Only recently, after being embraced as a two-time major championship winner (he captured the 1998 PGA Championship) has Singh started removing the barriers.

"Vijay is absolutely a great guy," said Paul Tesori, a former PGA Tour player who now caddies for Singh. "You spend five minutes with him, and you wonder how he ever got a reputation for being distant with people."

And there is no question that Singh -- who built an oceanfront mansion near PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach -- has the universal respect of his peers.

"I've never seen anyone work as hard as that man does," Nick Price said. "I wonder how much earth he's moved over the years. I don't know if Mr. (Ben) Hogan practiced as hard as Vijay did. Certainly no one in my era even comes close to him."

"He is a wonderful player, one of the best on this planet," said Duval, who played the last 36 holes with Singh at last year's Masters. "I don't think anybody should be surprised that Vijay won the golf tournament."

This week, Singh will attempt to become the first player since Nick Faldo in 1990 and the second in Masters history to defend his Masters title. (Jack Nicklaus won in 1965 and '66.)

And with that newfound resiliency on the greens, Singh is not discounting the idea.

"Mostly it has been a confidence factor," Singh said. "When I look back, I say, "Hey, listen. I had a great week at one of the toughest greens in the game of golf. Why not do it again?"