Woods’ Masters price should have shortened despite four-shot deficit

Tiger Woods may not have taken advantage of a wind-free Augusta to the same extent as some of his chief challengers, but the fact remains that a two-under round of 70 seems the ideal score for him to be sat on after the opening 18 holes at Augusta.

Woods may be four shots off the lead held by Mark Leishman and Sergio Garcia, but it should be remembered that on three of his four previous Masters victories, he opened with a 70.

For this reason alone, it is interesting that Woods has remained unchanged from his starting price of 4/1 to win the Masters, when he could have easily been shortened.

Woods arrived at Augusta bang in form with three victories already in 2013 and improvements in his putting were duly noted as a chief reason. He entered leading the PGA Tour statistics in the areas of adjusted scoring and strokes gained through putting.

Ironically, it was his play on the greens that was the main reason that he failed to take even closer order here, stating that they were running a bit slower than they looked, especially in the roll-out to the hole.

This should improve over the remaining three days though as Woods gets further acclimatised with conditions. The other area in improvement that is required is finding more greens in regulation.

The world number one hit 13 of 18 greens in regulation in his opening round and it is worth noting that in his four Masters victories, he has always achieved at least 75 per cent in this area.

13 in 18 greens is a result of 72 per cent and in all of the 14 Masters starts where he failed to win, Woods never registered better than 73.6 per cent across the tournament.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.