Woods back winning and hard to oppose for Masters now

Ominously for the rest of the golf world it seems that Tiger Woods is back and there are likely to be punters queuing up now to back him at 4/1 to win the Masters.

The only bad news for Woods is that the opening major of the year does not begin right away following the impressive nature of his victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Woods claimed his 72nd career PGA Tour title at a windy Bay Hill to move one behind Jack Nicklaus and will be eyeing moving closer to another Nicklaus record when heading to Augusta in a fortnight.

Since the US Open in 2008, Woods has been stranded on 14 major successes and it was largely assumed that he would get no nearer to breaking Nicklaus’ record of 18.

However, belief has been restored given the way that Woods performed in winning his first tournament in 30 months.

He finished in the top two for a number of the leading stats at Bay Hill and shot under-par for all four rounds in a tournament for the first time since returning from his personal issues.

Other facts that should worry the opposition was that the victory came against a strong field and was the largest margin of victory on the PGA Tour since Rory McIlroy won the US Open last year by eight strokes.

Meanwhile, he seems to have overcome the injured Achilles that caused his withdrawal from the WGC-Cadillac Championship earlier this month.

Furthermore, Woods hardly has a bad record at Augusta even when woefully out of form, finishing in the top-15 in 12 of the past 15 years.

And since his last Green Jacket in 2005, the worst Woods has finished in the event is tied sixth.

When in-form he must have an even greater chance and it is no wonder that he has already been backed in from 6/1 in the Masters odds to share favouritism with Rory McIlroy.