The golf betting entities still have Tiger Woods standing as the favourite even after Woods’ poor performances, which is the reason the overall ranking between Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Lee Westwood has been reduced.

Woods accumulated 9.47 points, while Mickelson and Westwood have 9.24 and 9.04, respectively.

On his part, Phil Mickelson is one of the most recognized figures in the sport and will return to Northern Ohio to participate for the 18th consecutive year in the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, taking into account that the American golfer has participated in this event since 1992.

In addition, the professional golfer has won four major championships, the last of which was won in April, when Phil Mickelson won the 2010 Masters Tournament.

However, since the Bridgestone Invitational became a World Golf Championship event in 1999, Mickelson has failed in his attempts to win it.

On the other hand, after missing five months and despite the dramatic return, Woods has arrived as a big favourite to this year’s tournaments.

For the 2010 Bridgestone Invitational, Tiger Woods will try to get his first win since he was involved in his infidelity scandals of last November.

However, we can’t expect that much, considering Woods has failed in his attempt to achieve a victory in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and at the British Open this year. But despite all this, he remains ranked as number one in the overall standings.

Finally, this will be a tournament that promises a lot of action, in which Woods will attempt to recover his good level of golf, but in which he will have a major contender that could remove him from the top of the table, Phil Mickelson.

phil mickelson

Phil Mickelson won the HSBC Champions Tournament in Shanghai by one shot to become the first player to win the tournament twice, his first win was in 2007, and also to end what has been a distracting year for the American, having taken time out to care for both his wife and mother who were both diagnosed with cancer during the year.

South African Ernie Els mounted pressure on Mickelson by hitting a stupendous round of nine under par 63, claiming a course record, but he was unable to unseat the leader and was left to ponder what might have been when he hit his only bogey of the day on the 18th after hitting his approach shot into the water in front of the green.

Tiger Woods had a less than impressive final day ending five shots behind the leader and one behind fifth placed Nick Watney, who had shared the lead at the half way stage.

Ryan Moore finished the tournament in third place, followed by Rory McIlroy in fourth, finishing on 14 under par and boosting his Race to Dubai bid and equalling the course record of 63 in the process.

Phil Mickelson said after the win;

“It feels terrific. It’s my last event of the year and to finish the year like this is just wonderful. Ernie and Rory McIlroy played one of the greatest rounds and I was fortunate to come out on top. It feels good because I had to fight very hard.”

Watney who had led the first days play, struggled a little on the second day hitting a two under 70 to keep a share of the lead with Woods, both now 10 under overall.

The chasing pack sit just one shot behind the leaders and include world number two Phil Mickelson, Ryan Moore and Alvaro Quiros, with Anthony Kim occupying third place on 8 under overall.

German Race to Dubai contender Martin Kaymer fell away with a two-over 74 to drop six shots back, while European money list leader Lee Westwood is tied for 23rd place at three under after two solid but unspectacular rounds.

Englishmen Ross Fisher and Paul Casey join Martin Kaymer on four under and six shots off the lead.

Although Watney could not match his first round score, both he and Woods produced four birdies on the back nine. Woods was frustrated earlier in the day with his putting, but ended in fine form, he said after day two;

“I got off to a good start and birdied the very first hole, but after that, I didn’t really make any putts. I certainly had some looks at them and didn’t really capitalise on anything and made a putt at nine and from then on I hit a lot of good putts and played the last 10 holes in five under.

It was a little bit frustrating not holing the putts, but the guys weren’t really running off and hiding and I knew that if I could play the back nine in three under that would be a pretty good number and I was able to do a couple better than that.”

Padraig Harrington

Harrington seemed to suffer more than Woods when a slow play call from referee John Paramor was made against the pair. Harrington’s fourth shot on the 16th ended in the pond guarding the green, effectively handing the win to Woods who finished the round 12 under for his seventh victory in the event.

Both Harrington and Woods felt that Paramor’s call had influenced the outcome of the game, the 33 year old American said;

“I’m sorry that John got in the way of a great battle because it was such a great battle for 16 holes,We’re going at it head-to-head and unfortunately that happened. I think being on the clock influenced Paddy. I’m sure he would have taken a lot more time on his third shot to try to figure out how to play it, where to place the next one.”

Harrington who finished the tied in second place with Australian Robert Allenby, said;

“When you’re out of position, it’s difficult to be on the clock, I was out of position on the tee shot, second shot and third shot. I was in trouble every time and it just puts a little bit of added doubt into the equation.It certainly knocked me out of my comfort zone, but there are rules. The players make the rules and we’ve got to apply them.”

In a statement European Tour chief referee John Paramor said:

“Padraig and Tiger’s group were 13 minutes over time through 11 holes.We could have put them on the clock at the 13th but we opted to cut them a bit of slack due to problems up at the 16th green at that time. .”

Defeat in the Accenture Match Play Championship second round was followed by a struggle for consistency at the WGC-CA Championship a couple of weeks ago.

The latest twist is that, ahead of the US Masters, he could be overtaken in the rankings by Phil Mickelson. The gap between the two has decreased to 0.2 points in the last few weeks, presenting Phil Mickelson with an opportunity to become the No.1 ranked golfer for the first time.

The scenario for this to happen is for Tiger Woods to finish outside the top two of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in Bay Hill. Then, when Phil Mickelson returns to action next week, he will have the chance to leapfrog his fellow American at the Houston Open.

It would mean that Tiger Woods would be stripped of his No.1 ranking for the first time in 198 weeks. Even though it comes on the back of being eight months out injured, this will still be significant for both players.

Tiger Woods – who managed to hold onto the No.1 spot throughout his injury – will not enjoy the fact that his great rival Phil Mickelson could overtake him in the rankings.

Phil Mickelson on the other hand will be ecstatic. It is what he has been aiming for during the last few years and you just know he is going to enjoy every moment should the next couple of weeks work in his favour.

Nothing is certain as yet though as it all depends on where Tiger Woods finishes in this week’s Arnold Palmer event. It would come as no surprise if the 33-year-old turned on the style and won the tournament to prevent Phil Mickelson having his moment of glory.

Tiger Woods often performs when he really, really needs to and this may well be the case again in the next few days. He may see victory in Bay Hill as the springboard for his return to form and this can only be a good thing for golf.

Good luck Tiger!

However, with Tiger Woods hogging all of the headlines, not many have spoke of the man he will be facing in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Brendan Jones is the man charged with the challenge of taking on a determined Tiger Woods in Arizona and he has admitted that he sees it as a ‘chance of a lifetime’.

The World number 64 went on to describe Tiger Woods’ return as one of the most ‘anticipated comebacks’ in the history of the sport and the fact that he will be getting a ‘front row seat’ is a ‘great honour’. Overall, it seems clear that Brendan Jones is very excited about the whole situation.

As for his chances of success against Woods, well despite being the lowest ranked player in the tournament, he believes that he has ‘some chance’ of success.

The Australian went on to say that he has ‘nothing to lose’ and that he was ‘here to try and beat him’. All things considered though, Brendan Jones will just be counting himself fortunate to be competing with the best player around.

As much as match-play can throw up surprises from time to time, nobody will be expecting it to as Tiger Woods makes his eagerly anticipated return to professional golf.

Vijay Singh beat English golfer Lee Westwood by one shot to win the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational title in Ohio. The 45-year-old shared the lead with Lee Westwood and Phil Mickelson overnight, but recorded a round of 68 on the final day to finish on 10 under par.

It wasn’t easy for Vijay Singh though and in actual fact he nearly through it away. Half way into the final round, he produced some messy putting and threw away an early two shot lead. Showing his experience though, he held on to win his first ever WGC title and his first PGA Tour title in six years. Lee Westwood – who has been in fine form of late – finished joint second with Stuart Appleby. Phil Mickelson on the other hand ended up in fourth.

Talking of the World number two, it was his poor form towards the end of the round that allowed Vijay Singh in for victory. As he approached the 15th hole, he had a one shot lead over the rest of the field. However, he bogeyed three of the last four holes to throw away his lead. Hardly what you would come to expect from a man who is the highest ranked golfer competing in the world right now because of Tiger Woods’ injury.

The victory means that Vijay Singh moves up to number four in the world rankings, a position that could have been occupied by Lee Westwood if he had won in Ohio. Instead, the English golfer moves up to 12th in the world. You get the feeling that it won’t be long until he forces his way into the top ten though, because he is in excellent form. Speaking after the WGC event he said that he feels very ‘comfortable’ amongst the best golfers in the world at the moment. Something which has possibly hampered him in the past.

With the Ryder Cup coming up in September, all European golf fans will be hoping that Lee Westwood can continue in the same vain he has recently. From what I can see, there is no reason why he won’t. If I was to place a golf bet on the Ryder Cup, I’d certainly back Lee Westwood to be one of the leading point scorers for Europe, even though he missed out on a PGA title to Vijay Singh this time around.

Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 US Open champion lead from the end of the first day on Thursday, and finished round 4 with a one-under-par 71 for a fantastic 17-under total of 271, one shot clear of Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk.

Much of the talk this weekend was not about how exceptional Ogilvy was playing to keep ahead of the pack throughout the whole weekend, but whether Tiger woods was going to complete his eigth championship victory in a row.

Tiger Woods cetainly didn’t play his best and finished in fifth with a 15-under.

The highest placed Briton was Englishman Graeme Storm, who ended the weather-delayed event on 13 under.

At least at the next championship we should be able to enjoy less of a focus on Tiger and more on the tournament itself.

Ogilvy has a one shot lead, with an impressive 14-under, over Adam Scott, with Vijay Singh, Tim Clark and Tiger Woods all on 11-under.

Round 3 will be completed on Sunday morning, EST.

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Not only is Tiger Woods looking for his eighth straight consecutive tournament victory, but his has won the WGC-CA Championship for the past three years.

But with a commanding 12-under par lead, Geoff Ogilvy will surely remain confident after completing a great second round – 5-under 67 – that saw him save par four times from a bunker to remain bogey-free over the first two rounds at Doral.

Fellow Australian, Adam Scott also hit a 67 to finish third on 9-under.

Tiger began to claw his way back up the leaderboard with eagles at the 12th, when he chipped in from a bunker, and at the first, with a brilliant 330-yard drive, before finishing with a 23-foot birdie.

Apparently when a reporter told Geoff Ogilvy his golf tournement odds with the bookmakers was 5-1 to win, and Tiger at odds of 1-2, he said “Five to one [...] if I wasn’t playing, maybe I’d have a go.”

This is exciting stuff. I only hope that after Round 3 we head into the final day’s play on Sunday with a few players still in the hunt. You expect the best player in the world to always be there or thereabouts. But Tiger winning everything is going to become very boring, unless your Tiger Woods, of course!