PGA Golf Betting Odds: Tiger Woods is Back

Tiger Woods returns to the PGA Tour this week as part of the Accenture Championship. betED.com was expected to list Woods as the +200 to +300 favorite among its PGA Golf betting odds.  He has been out of commission for nine months following knee surgery.

Woods announced last week that he will play in the World Golf Championship -Accenture Match-Play Championship in Arizona, which gets going Wednesday. It will be his first tournament since having reconstructive ACL surgery after winning the U.S. Open last June.

Check out betED.com PGA Golf Betting Odds for the latest lines on all the players, including Woods, who's retained his No. 1 world ranking despite the time off.  The odds were expected to go up on the site Tuesday.

Brackets were decided on Monday and Woods, the defending champion and three-time winner of the WGC match-play event, will face World No. 64 Brendan Jones in the first round.

Woods will be playing his first competitive round since defeating Rocco Mediate in a thrilling playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open.

He is the No. 1 seed in the Bobby Jones bracket and has four other major champions in his bracket: ninth-seeded Retief Goosen, fifth-seed Mike Weir, 2006 champion and second-seeded Geoff Ogilvy and seventh-seed Trevor Immelman.

Sergio Garcia (Gary Player bracket), Padraig Harrington (Sam Snead) and Vijay Singh (Ben Hogan) are the other top seeds.

The 64-man WGC-Accenture Match Play field is determined by the world ranking; a player can be eliminated after one round. The brackets will be set Sunday and play begins next Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club.

Woods played with long-time friend and neighbor John Cook, a member of the Champions Tour, last week and Cook said he liked what he saw in Woods' game.

Woods has been recovering from anterior cruciate ligament surgery in his left knee. He had the procedure in late June, eight days after the U.S. Open.

That was Woods' 14th major championship and 65th PGA Tour title.