LONDON, Dec 28: World number six Sergio Garcia has set his sights on becoming the top player on next year’s U.S. Tour by overcoming the threat of Tiger Woods.

But the Spaniard, who won twice in the United States and once in France during 2001, says he wants to maintain his playing privileges on both sides of the Atlantic.

“I want to be number one in America and win their money list,” the 21-year-old Spaniard told The Guardian newspaper on Friday.

“If I could win a major, a WGC event and one other counting event, that could be good enough for the order of merit.

“But I am playing 11 tournaments that qualify for Europe’s order of merit and I see no reason why I should not win it as well. I want to be number one on both sides of the Atlantic; it is my main goal.”

If Garcia wants to become the number one player in the United States, he knows he will have to negotiate the threat posed by the game’s number one player — Tiger Woods.

But the gifted Spaniard is by no means intimidated.

“Of course he (Woods) is catchable,” he said.

“I strongly feel I am closer to him than before. Part of it is the ball - it is going so far that his length is not the advantage it was when he first came out - but part of it is his own fault.

“He has reset the bar and we are all having to work harder to get better. That is thanks to him.”

Garcia finished sixth on the 2001 U.S. order of merit with earnings of $2,898,635 from just 18 events.

He won two PGA Tour titles during the year, the MasterCard Colonial in late May and the Buick Classic towards the end of June.

Although he ended up 27th on the season-ending European Tour money list, he played in only 10 tournaments.

He won his third career title in Europe when he came from four strokes behind with four holes to play to edge ahead of the defending champion Retief Goosen and clinch the Lancome Trophy in September.

“It has been a good year for me. I have learned a lot,” Garcia said.

“Mostly, though, I have learned that, if you do not ask yourself to give as much as you can, you will not get close.

“I realised at Pebble Beach in the 2000 U.S. Open, when Tiger (Woods) was 12-under and no one else was under par, that it was no good saying to yourself, ‘Let’s make par, let’s make par, let’s hit another green and another,’.

“Because, if you achieve that, you will probably three-putt the next green, and then where are you?”—Reuters