WGC-CA Championship round two: Time for the Winner Without Woods market

You can stop clutching those straws, guys. You know the stats as well as anyone. Tiger Woods has won 26 of the 32 PGA Tour events he has led at the half-way stage and he doesn’t look like denting that record this weekend. Odds on (1.6) with two rounds to go speaks for itself.

There’s a few looking up at Tiger and thinking that if he could implode last Sunday he can implode this Sunday too, but that is a huge dollop of wishful thinking. Tiger is so much more comfortable with Doral than Bay Hill and there’s no meaner machine when out in front.

His rivals have only themselves to blame, anyway, for letting him take a two-stroke lead. I did warn them about what would happen. As Tiger found his missing putter Friday, leader Henrik Stenson mislaid his irons big time, although he is still the tournament’s top putter. Ernie Els continued to flail to only modest effect with his putter.

Performance of the day, apart from Tiger, came from a reborn Zach Johnson and Vijay Singh. The Fijian is making a habit of pulling himself back from poor opening rounds, although he’s probably left himself too much to do this time.

This being golf, of course, you can never entirely rule out another Tiger collapse. But if you’re looking for a punt this weekend the Winner Without Woods market is probably where it’s at. Word of warning to the uninitiated: you have to be careful laying in this market because there can be more than one winner, depending on how many tie for second place in the actual competition.

I wouldn’t rule Singh out in that market, but Johnson’s putting and greens in regulation stats really stand out, Charles Howell III is on top form and I expect Stenson to rally from Friday’s disappointment. Unless Els is also going to have a putting epiphany this weekend, though, he might be worth opposing at 6.