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Las Vegas is giving Tiger Woods insane odds to win his first tournament back

Published Oct. 10, 2016 11:45 a.m. ET

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Tiger Woods will play his first competive round of golf in 14 months this weekend at the Safeway Open, and the 14-time major champion will reportedly be paired with Phil Mickelson for the first two rounds. Woods has undergone three back surgeries since 2014, and the only evidence that he can play at a high level is a recent report from Jesper Parnevik, who bragged that Woods is "flushing everything" and hitting the ball "a mile" in practice rounds. Woods missed the cut in three out of the last six tournaments he's played (all in 2015), and he sat out the entirety of the 2016 season.

Despite all of that, Las Vegas still favors Tiger Woods to pull off a miracle comeback and win his 80th career PGA Tour event over the majority of the field.

The Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook is currently giving Woods 40-to-1 odds to win at the Silverado Resort, a course where Woods has never played professionally before. Bovada lists Woods at 33-to-1, and only seven other players have better odds (led by Paul Casey at 12-to-1).

That's borderline disrespectful to the rest of the field. The Safeway Open isn't loaded with Top-10 or even Top-20 players, but there are 10 players in the field who won PGA Tour events this past season - Smylie Kaufman, Peter Malnati, Fabian Gomez, Vaughn Taylor, Tony Finau, Charley Hoffman, Brian Stuard, James Hahn, Greg Chalmers and Aaron Baddeley - who have worse odds than Woods.

Tiger did once win his first tournament back from surgery - but that was 13 years ago in 2003. 44-to-1 odds just to make the cut would be generous for the 40-year-old, and it's likely that his only goal this weekend is to finish all four rounds without feeling pain. Only a fool would bet on him to win this week.

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