Woods hugs caddie after superb victory.

Tiger Woods won the Open at St Andrews today - and runner-up Colin Montgomerie believes the champion will soon challenge Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major titles.

Woods, 29, held off the challenge of Jose Maria Olazabal and Montgomerie to win by five shots on the Old Course and secure his 10th major.

Montgomerie told BBC1: "He knows he's on his way to Jack Nicklaus' record - he's over halfway so who knows?"

Woods was delighted with his win and believes it vindicates his decision to make changes in his game.

Woods told BBC1: "It's a dream come true to win at the home of golf - it's as good as it gets.

"Anything could have happened but I played really well coming in.

"All the hard hours I've put in to get to this point has been a lot of fun - it's why I made the changes to my game.

"People criticised them but it's why I did them - to get back to this level."

Montgomerie was within range of Woods but never quite caught him, though the Scot took heart from his impressive performance.

Montgomerie told BBC1 : "You've got to take positives - I'm back in the position where I felt I belonged in the 1990s.

"In the past four years things haven't gone too well and it's nice to be back in this arena.

"I feel this is a big push in the right direction for my career and I look forward to playing in future tournaments.

"The crowd were fantastic to me, I'll take that experience with me for a long, long time. They were full of anticipation, I got off to a reasonable start and anything could have happened.

"I never caught him, he was always one ahead and he played very well coming in, it was very difficult making pars coming in."