IT SHOULD be one of the great rivalries in world sport.

Two players, ranked number one and two in the world, competing against each other at least four high-profile times a season.

A contrast in style and personality that throws up a clear dividing line between the two, meaning that if you’re cheering for one, you’re generally cheering against the other.

And a mutual antipathy that sporadically bursts to the surface as undisguised dislike.

Tiger Woods vs Phil Mickelson should be the head-to-head contest that dominates golf, yet while all the ingredients are present and correct, the recipe always tends to go awry in the baking.

In all the years they have been competing together, Woods and Mickelson have never battled it out on the final Sunday of a Major championship.

So as the world’s best golfers make their annual pilgrimage to Augusta ahead of this week’s US Masters, the viewing public will be hoping to see that glaring anomaly change. If it does, we might be on the verge of the sporting highlight of the year.

Top-class sport lives on its rivalries, but none of the great ones – think Coe vs Ovett, Prost vs Senna, Nadal vs Federer – came with the same edge as Woods’ relationship with Mickelson.

Because we’re talking about golf, the pair are yet to resort to physical violence. But some of the barbs that have been hurled in either direction in the last decade have had a significant weight attached.

Take this from Woods’ caddie, Steve Williams, when he was asked to talk about Mickelson. “I wouldn’t call him a great player because I hate the prick.” Nothing unequivocal there from a figure who is widely viewed as Woods’ mouthpiece.

Mickelson has tended to be slightly more circumspect in his public utterances, but when he was paired with Woods in the opening two rounds of last year’s US Open, few failed to notice that the world number two barely said a word to his partner.

The sun might have been out, but there was a biting frost in the air.

Quite simply, the pair do not get on, with Woods’ relentless pursuit of world domination jarring with Mickelson, a character whose belief in his own ability does not appear to leave room for a rival world number one.

Given that the pair have been the best two golfers in the world for four or five years now – even Padraig Harrington’s two Major titles have barely made a dent in the world rankings – you would have thought they would have contested countless Majors down the stretch. After all, they’ve won 17 between them.

But no, their simmering rivalry appears to be so strong that it guarantees diametrically opposed fortunes over the course of a Major weekend. If one is at the top of the leader board, the other will be close to the bottom. It as if they are two magnets, repelling each other’s presence with an unalterable force.

There are logical reasons why this might be the case.

Perhaps in trying to overhaul the lead of their rival, the trailer in the duo takes risks they would otherwise avoid? Perhaps they see the other’s name at the top of the leader board and psychology takes over?

Or could it just be golfing fate? Perhaps the price of being able to watch two of the all-time greats is that we’re never destined to see them head-to-head?

It’s starting to look that way, but the beauty of sport is that there’s always another opportunity around the corner. Maybe this is the week when the drama finally happens.

WOODS is 33, not too old for a golfer, but as he tees off at Augusta this evening, the four-time Masters champion could be forgiven for looking at the group that is waiting behind him.

It contains American Anthony Kim and Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, two players who have widely been touted as the ‘new Tiger Woods’. In five or six years time, their rivalry could be the ‘new Woods vs Mickelson’.

Kim is the senior partner at the moment, having turned professional in 2006 and claimed his first PGA tour victory at the Wachovia Championship last May.

But the hope on this side of the Atlantic must be that McIlory will eventually overtake him, and the evidence so far this season has been positive.

With his beaming smile and untamed hair, 19-yearold McIroy has proved a massive hit since making his American debut in the World Match Play Championships.

He reached the quarterfinals of that tournament, despite intense attention from both the galleries and the media, and has charmed all and sundry in the run-up to this week’s Masters.

It would be folly to expect too much from him on his first appearance at Augusta, but when the likes of Woods, Mark O’Meara and Arnold Palmer are queuing up to extol your virtues, you must be doing something right.

Woods tied for 41st in his first appearance at the Masters. I’d wager a fair bit of money that McIlroy beats that over the course of the next four days.

AND speaking of wagers, what are the chances of a second successive 100-1 shot coming in this weekend?

With rain forecast over the course of the four days play, and Woods still to peak following knee surgery, could there be another Mon Mome lurking at the bottom of the bookmakers’ lists?

Probably not, but it’s good to dream, so I’ll be having an each-way flutter on 100-1 shot Angel Cabrera.

Who said lightning doesn’t strike twice?