On Sunday, German Martin Kaymer won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. The 25-year-old German has now won the last three tournaments he’s entered, including the Dutch KLM Open in September and the PGA Championship in August. He’s the first golfer to do that since Tiger Woods in 2006, and the first European since England’s Nick Faldo in 1998.

Kaymer has also decided to enter the Andalucian Masters in Spain at the end of this month because a victory there would give him the number one world ranking, which Tiger Woods has held for a record 279 weeks.

World #2 Lee Westwood of England had an opportunity to move past Tiger with a top two finish at the Dunhill, but only managed a tie for 11th place.  Westwood plans to take another month off because of a nagging calf injury that caused him to miss the PGA Championship. Westwood could still move to world number one on October 31 if Kaymer can’t make it four in a row in Spain, and if Tiger doesn’t decided to enter any more tournaments.  Currently, Westwood and Tiger are both playing to take time off before returning to play in the HSBC Champions event in China at the beginning of November.

The win at Dunhill moved Kaymer up to fourth in the world rankings, a career-best. The German struggled to explain his sudden run of good luck. “I was never expecting it and I don’t really have an answer for why I am playing so well at the moment,” said Kaymer. “I’ve always played solid golf and my short game has improved big-time the last two years and especially the last few months.”

Last week, Kaymer lost his Ryder Cup singles match to Dustin Johnson, but went 2-0-1 in his other matches to help Europe to a narrow 14 1/2 to 13 1/2 victory. Westwood was also 2-0-1 in team play, but lost his singles match to Steve Stricker, who is currently #5 in the world rankings. Tiger won his singles match easily, but was 2-1-0 in team play, suffering his worst-ever Ryder Cup defeat at the hands of Westwood and Luke Donald.