Think of Tiger Woods what you will, but the latest golf rankings are another reminder of the thing that made him famous.

Woods has now been world number one for the past 250 weeks - and that would be a record except for the fact that between 1999 and 2004 he held the position for 264 uninterrupted weeks.

In total Woods has been at the head of things for 592 weeks, more than 11 years, since he first knocked Greg Norman off the perch a mere two months after he won his first major at Augusta in 1997.

There is no greater demonstration of his domination than to list how long the other holders of the title have held it since the rankings started in 1986.

Bernhard Langer was first to reign, but only for three weeks and never again.

Seve Ballesteros was the second and his career featured 61 weeks as world number one - in five different spells.

Norman first held the spot in September 1986 and was there for all but one week over the following two years and again for periods in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997.

The Australian's final week at the top was in January 1998 and by then he had spent a total of 331 weeks there.

But nobody other than Woods has reached anything like that number in the 12 years since.

Nick Faldo totalled 97 weeks between 1990 and 1994, Ian Woosnam 50 weeks (1991-92), Fred Couples 16 weeks (1992), Nick Price 44 weeks (1994-95), Tom Lehman one week (1997), Ernie Els nine weeks (1997-98), David Duval 15 weeks (1999) and Vijay Singh 32 weeks (2004-05).

So 11 players have held the spot for 659 weeks between them and Woods has been there for 592. It is quite feasible that some time next year he will have spent longer there than everybody else put together.

And now that he has decided to resume his career Phil Mickelson's chances of being world number one for at least one week may be dashed again.

Mickelson got close, as did Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington, during Woods's eight-month injury lay-off following his 2008 United States Open victory.

Garcia, in fact, was only one good performance away from possibly going top 12 months ago, but he has yet to have a top-three finish in any tournament since then and does not even find himself in the top 15 any more.

Mickelson in turn has lost second spot to Steve Stricker, but neither of them will be in striking distance before The Masters and Woods's comeback appearance.

Harrington, meanwhile, has not won a Tour event since the 2008 US PGA and only got back into the top 10 when he came third in the WGC-CA Championship in Miami two weeks ago.

What they all seek, of course, is the level of consistency that has been the hallmark of Woods in the past decade and more.

Last season was put down by some as a disappointing one for him because he did not add to his 14 majors, but in 19 events he won seven, had three runners-up finishes and only three times finished outside the top 10.

That was pretty much the norm for Woods in recent years.

In 2008 he played seven tournaments before his injury, won five of them and was second and fifth in the others.

In 2007 he won eight times in 18 starts and also had three runners-up finishes, in 2006 there were 11 victories in 21 starts, plus three seconds.

And in 2006 he lifted eight titles in 25 starts and had five second places.

The man is simply in a league of his own.

Where he went wrong was thinking that that entitled him to do what he wanted away from the course. Private life maybe, but when his debauchery became public knowledge the father-of-two's world fell apart and the world's opinion of him changed.

"I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in," he said in his televised address last month.

"I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself."

In his five-minute interviews with two American sports channels at the weekend he added: "I tried to stop and I couldn't stop. It was horrific.

"The truth is very painful at times and to stare at yourself and look at the person you've become you become disgusted.

"I'm trying to become a better person each and every day. The proof in the pudding is over time and that's what I'm trying to do."

What impact all this will have on his career is now the next fascinating chapter.