Woods 'to tie knot'

Faldo, 47, insisted the 28-year-old Woods needs to play more tournaments rather than cashing in on his name.

"Tiger is an empire already, which is quite amazing," Faldo told The Sun.

"He has to have so much going on. He is so big that it is hard to focus just on playing. His concentration has been diverted a little bit."

Woods set a world record of 334 weeks on top of the rankings before being overtaken by Fiji's Vijay Singh in early September and then South African Ernie Els on Sunday.

The American won the last of his eight majors at the 2002 US Open, after which he left swing coach Butch Harmon, and has not won a strokeplay event in 2004.

Woods is the world's richest sportsman, with advertising deals ranging from sports equipment to computer games.

But he played just 20 tournaments in 2003 and has competed in 20 worldwide so far this season, compared to Singh's 27.

"There's no doubt his game has changed. Years ago he just stood up, took a practice swing and hit it. Now he's thinking about his swing," said Faldo, a former world number one and six-time major winner.

"But we all change. This is part of the big life curve - and it is up to Tiger to go with the flow and get his game back."