Tiger The Favourite at Arnie’s Tournament

Tiger Woods hasn’t won a tournament since 2009, but that hasn’t stopped him from topping betting boards every time he tees it up and that continues to be the case at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida.

Tiger will go out well ahead of the field at (8-1) looking to build on his first top-10 of the season earlier this month at the WGC Cadillac Championship.

There are many doubters surrounding Tiger and the state of his game, but it bears mentioning that he’s been undergoing a large swing change and change in philosophy with swing coach Sean Foley and, if it’s anything like his last swing change a decade ago, he should come out of it his normal dominant self.

Granted, he’s been inconsistent at best this season and there’s really no knowing when, or if, these changes will take hold.

Behind Woods at (16-1) are Dustin Johnson and Tiger’s recent nemesis Graeme McDowell.

Johnson has had a solid 2011 thus far, but has yet to find the winner’s circle after another close call in his last start at the Cadillac Championship.

Johnson just couldn’t catch a red hot Nick Watney falling by two shots to his fellow American for a 2nd place finish.

That top-3 was his second of the year as he opened his season with a 3rd place finish at the Farmer’s Insurance Open.

Despite not winning yet in 2011, Johnson is just so good and he can win any given week.

McDowell has had three top-10’s this season in just four starts in America in 2011.

His worst finish was his most recent result on the West side of the Atlantic as he simply couldn’t get anything going at Doral finishing 42nd at the Cadillac Championship.

However, McDowell has become a top echelon player over the last year and the fact he started his 2011 PGA Tour season with three straight top-10’s certainly adds stock to such a claim.

He finished 2010 by dashing Tiger’s hopes for a season ending victory at the Chevron World Challenge as he inexplicably made to two consecutive bombs to ultimately claim the win.

From the land of long odds, Camilo Villegas tees off round one at (100-1).  He has yet to make a top-10 this year and has missed as many cuts as he’s made.  In the end however, this is a guy who has won three tournaments over the last three years, so he knows how to get the job done.

Have you ever noticed what golf spells backwards?   - Al Boliska