Tiger Woods starts his second tournament since knee surgery this week at Doral, but is he the favorite to win?

Maybe, maybe not. Geoff Ogilvy is HOT right now. He won the opener, the Mercedes Benz Championship. He won the Accenture Match Play Championship, where Tiger made his comeback, and he’s the defending Champion of THIS event.

Tiger has won this event six times, the only American winner out of the nine events. Others beside Tiger and Geoff are Mike Weir from my home country, Canada, and Ernie Els of South Africa.

So the question is, is Tiger expected to win? Is Geoff Ogilvy?

Tiger, I’m sure has been playing daily, getting his knee back in the best shape it possibly can be. But will it be enough?

Besides Ogilvy, there will be plenty of other golfers determined to stop Tiger in his tracks. Both Weir and Els are in the field, along with Stuart Appleby and Sergio Garcia, who is trying to take over the number one spot in the world.

If you’re a stats and numbers kind of person, you’ll just go to PGA.com and read it for yourself, but to sum it up, Tiger was so far ahead of his nearest competitor in June of last year when he won the US Open, that it has taken this long for anyone to catch him. Although Sergio hasn’t been winning that many tournaments, only two since Tiger won the Open, he has been consistently moving up the ranks. He now sits 1.59 points back of Tiger, and the incentive to win and put Tiger to number two might just be enough. Even if he wins, however, Tiger has to finish 27^th or worse. And if that isn’t enough, Phil Mickelson sits only 44 points back.

Tiger isn’t likely to falter that much. He is a smart golfer and a smart man and he wouldn’t be back on the links if he wasn’t completely ready. His play at the Accenture Match Play wasn’t poor and it wasn’t his knee that kept him from winning, at least not from my point of view, and I watched every minute of it. It seemed more that he had to get used to the pace of the game, the crowds, the whole scene again. He was patient and controlled, but it almost seemed he was too controlled. That’s just MY opinion, and you can bet I’ll be watching this weekend to see how he does.

Vegas has him favored at 11/4 at the time of this writing. Geoff Ogilvy’s odds are 12/1, Phil’s are 18/1 and Sergio sits at 20/1 which is a bit of a surprise.

I’m taking Ogilvy though, what’s your take?