Tiger leads the way after superb second round at Bay Hill

Tiger Woods has been slashed to 1/1 to win his first tournament of 2012 after a flawless second round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Woods carded seven birdies and no bogeys on his way to a 65 that once again showed he is far from a spent force in the biggest tournaments.

Woods said: “I putted well. I didn’t feel I hit it all that great, but the good thing is my misses are better and I played smart.”

The 14-times major champion is undoubtedly playing smart around a Bay Hill course that he has already won at six times in this tournament and, so far in the opening two rounds, he has failed to make par or better just once.

He is only tied for the lead though and Korean Charlie Wi is also at ten-under following opening rounds of 66 and 68.

He is still relatively unfancied at 8/1 though and of more concern to Woods will be the bigger names slightly further down the leaderboard.

Former US Open champion and Ryder Cup hero Graeme McDowell has been cut to 6/1 to win the tournament following a brilliant second round 63 that saw him shoot up the leaderboard to tied third with Jason Dufner who is 7/1.

McDowell has been in increasingly excellent form this season and finally looks to have shaken off the shackles of being a major winner – something he admitted he struggled to cope with.

He’s shown he has the game and the mentality to win when the pressure is on and he could be an extremely tempting punt.

Justin Rose continued his good start to the season with consecutive 69s in Florida to keep himself in the hunt at six-under.

However, with Woods not making many mistakes and his game starting to shape up nicely, it’s hard to see beyond a win for the golfing superstar.