Improving Tiger Woods a good each-way bet at the Honda Classic

The pressure on Tiger Woods is as unrelenting as ever as he looks to bag his first win of 2012 at the Honda Classic.

Woods – who is 10/1 to win the tournament – has once again had to come out fighting following revelations in a book by former coach Hank Haney.

While the fact that Woods fancied himself as a Navy Seal isn’t as earth-shattering as the facts about his personal life revealed in the wake of his car crash in 2009, it’s yet another distraction for Woods.

And he has enough problems on the course to deal with.

His usually rock-solid putting stroke has shown signs of fragility recently and he missed a match-saving five-foot putt in his second round Accenture World Match Play clash with Nick Watney just last week.

However, while victory in regular tour events are important to Woods, it’s always been about the majors that he’s targeted and he feels that, with five weeks to go until the Masters, his game is shaping up nicely.

Speaking ahead of the Honda Classic, Woods said: “Now that I’ve got the full swing where I like to have it I can spend the majority of my time chipping and putting

“When I looked at the tape I got away from some of those things. My posture was off, the way the club was releasing was off.

“Once I get my posture and everything lined up the putter just flows. That’s a good feeling.”

With Woods’ game very much a work in progress at the moment, a victory at the Honda may be beyond him at this stage of the season but, with good showings in all of his strokeplay events this term (he’s finished in the top 15 in all of them), backing him each-way could be well worth consideration.