Arnold Palmer Invitational Betting: Tiger must be backed on favoured track

Golf Events / Paul Krishnamurty / 24 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

The great man is returning to top form and continues his Masters tune-up with a visit to Bay Hill, one of his favourite courses, and that makes odds of [3.6] value, says Paul Krishnamurty.

It was always going to be easy making a strong argument to oppose Tiger Woods in his first comeback tournament, the annual lottery known as the WGC Matchplay. And having done so little to justify market confidence in that event, layers were always going to be confident about taking him on in his next start at Doral. But a fortnight down the line, plenty of time for Woods to continue fine-tuning his game after such a long lay-off, my advice to layers this week is to quit whilst they're ahead.

For while a lay of Tiger at Doral was a lovely stress-free position - with Woods never even threatening the leaderboard before finishing a distant ninth - there was much to like about his performance.

His driving was exemplary, with no evidence of pain in his knee, and he ranked a respectable 12th in the crucial greens in regulation category. His scoring improved as the week went on. As Tiger himself admitted in post-round interviews, he was lacking sharpness on and around the greens, which made keeping up with the low scoring impossible. That is perfectly understandable after a lay-off, and nobody would seriously doubt Woods' ability to soon recover the magical short-game touch that has played as big a part in his success over the years as his feted long game.

Bearing in mind that his progress so far has been rapid considering the seriousness of his injury, and that he hasn't been practising properly for more than a couple of months, I strongly expect him to improve markedly in the short-game department this week, with a view to peaking at next month's US Masters.

Unlike Doral, this week's venue, Bay Hill, is all about long game excellence. Scoring is rarely low on this par-70, which is usually one of the toughest on the PGA Tour. The rough is penal, greens tricky and numerous water hazards ensure there are disasters lurking all over the course. If Tiger can just repeat his long game performance from Doral, (and there's every reason to think we'll actually see an improvement), then he is going to be a lot closer to the lead.

Bay Hill is one of his favourite courses. He hasn't been quite as dominant here as Torrey Pines, Firestone or St Andrews, but this is certainly amongst the next best. Including last year, Tiger has won this event on five occasions from nine attempts this century. In crude statistical terms, that means he should be odds-on this week, yet we can take a very attractive looking [3.6]. I fully expect that to shorten by the time he tees off.

Those odds are only marginally shorter than the current [3.9] quote for Augusta, yet the opposition this week is much weaker than a major line-up. Most notably, there is no Phil Mickelson in the field, the man who is currently clear second best. Nor are Sergio Garcia or Geoff Ogilvy.

In fact, scarcely any of Woods' main rivals for Augusta are lining up in Florida, with only seven of this week's opponents trading lower than [100.0] for the Masters. And of those, only Retief Goosen could be described as being in-form. Others such as Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh have been way below their best of late.

Finally, there is the small matter of the world rankings. Tiger will be painfully aware that Mickelson is closer to his total than ever before, and urgently needs to win this week to restore a cushion. Without doubt, that must act as an extra motivation. If he doesn't win, that rankings battle will add yet more spice to their forthcoming meeting at Augusta, and the layers will go into the year's first major with their confidence high and satchels full.