What Are Tiger Woods’ Real Odds of Winning the 2018 Masters?
Don’t call it a comeback, but Tiger Woods is about to make a comeback, again, or at least it looks like he’s going to. Or at least that’s what the sportsbooks in Vegas and online seemed to predict when they gave him super good odds going into the 2018 Masters.
They might wish they hadn’t done so now. Despite not winning outright in any of his appearances up to this point on the PGA Tour, Woods – the golfer who pretty much singlehandedly defined the entire sport from the middle of the 1990s until late in the oughts – did put together some solid showings at tournaments like the Valspar Invitational about a month ago. The bookies, whether in Vegas or at legal offshore sports betting sites like the Latvia-based Bovada, accordingly slathered the comeback kid (who just got over a much needed lower spinal fusion surgery to fix some malingering back issues) with odds that just got better and better as the weeks ticked by.
Now here we are: poised on the cusp of the 82nd edition of the prestigious tournament in the world and the richest one by far on the PGA Tour, Woods is boasting moneyline odds of +1400 to win the whole show. If you’re a bettor, that sounds pretty darn good, right? The bookies put Woods in third place on the digital betting boards behind front runners Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy (both of which have moneyline odds of +1000) and right on the heels of Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson (+1200 each). So enthusiastic were the millions of American sports bettors following Tiger’s apparent return to competitiveness that the Vegas sportsbooks are probably going to (figuratively) go belly up on golf for the rest of the year if he does indeed win.
It has been reported at ESPN that there are more bets checked in for Woods than on any other golfer in the field, and his odds against the field are the same as a win: +1400 compared to -5000 on literally any other player getting the win instead. If you take a look at the +250 odds on Woods to at least finish in the top five final spots by the end of the four-round tournament, it’s no wonder why sports betting industry experts are predicting six figures’ worth of losses at basically every sportsbook on the Strip in Sin City.
Pretty much the only thing the ‘books have on their side is time: Woods is 42, it’s true, and he hasn’t won a PGA tournament since 2013. It has also been a solid 12 years since he won the Masters, but (and this is a huge but) he has won at the Augusta National on four other occasions. A golfer doesn’t just get one of the coveted green jackets mailed out to their home address for being a good sport, so it speaks to Woods’ long-standing drive to compete that he could have probably been effective much longer than he was up until recently.
Woods might not have won the Masters since 2005, but his track record at the famous north Georgia course more or less speaks for itself. Other than a few outliers like a finish in 40th place in 2012 (at the lowest point in his personal and professional life, to be honest) and a 17th spot conclusion to the 2015 edition (when it became clear he needed to take some time off), the only bad marks were few and far between. Tiger sat out the Master the last two years, and the best he could manage in his 1995 debut was 41st place before missing the cut in 1996, but that was just about it.
On the other hand, Wood’s successes or near successes at Augusta have been much frequent. He won his first green jacket in 1997, and his second four years later. He followed that up with another win in 2003 in what was his fourth consecutive win at a major tournament, and making him only the third player in the history of the PGA Tour to defend his title at the Masters. Woods claimed victory for the fourth (and maybe the final time) in 2005, but he didn’t exactly do so shabby in subsequent years either: six top five finishes in 10 years ain’t bad at all.
There were, of course, extenuating circumstances behind his fall from grace, ranging from poor personal decisions (don’t cheat on your wife, stupid) and health problems (which may have resulted from poor swinging mechanics putting too much torsion on his spine). Nevertheless, Woods looks to have what it takes to at least compete, if not win the whole show, and he’ll get his chance to prove he is still relevant and a force on the tour starting April 5. The smart money is to put what you can afford to wager on Tiger to show up – and let the bookies figure out how to pay you.