Hero World Challenge betting guide: 4 plays we love this week at Tiger’s event

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, where we share our favorite bets for the upcoming action. This time around, it’s the Hero World Challenge, which gets underway Thursday at Albany, in the Bahamas. Along with our recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp, a free-to-play mobile platform that features a range of games with enticing prizes, giving fans all kinds of ways to engage in the action without risking any money.

Here we go again: Tiger Woods on the comeback trail. Woods’ latest return to competition takes place this week in the friendliest of formats, a 20-player, cut-free event in the tropics, where Woods himself serves as tournament host.

What are his chances in the Hero World Challenge, at Albany, in the Bahamas? Las Vegas doesn’t like them. As of this writing, Woods is dead last on the betting board, at 40-1.

We’re with the bookmakers. Tiger’s odds are rightly dim; he’s not going to win. But someone will. As is our custom in this space, we’ve made three picks: a favorite, a contender and a long shot. And given the big storyline this week, we’ve added a bonus wager: a proposition bet on Woods.

Favorite: Viktor Hovland, +400

Call it the Occam’s razor approach to odds making: the most obvious answer is probably correct. No player on the planet has been hotter than Hovland, and no player in the field is more at home at Albany, where he won in 2021 and 2022. Let’s not overthink this. We’re all in on Hovland to make it three in a row.

Contender: Cameron Young, +1,600

There’s too much money on the line to call it an old-fashioned hit-and-giggle. Still, the Hero stands to be a laidback birdie-fest, and few players make birdies in bigger bunches than Young. The question mark, as always, will be his putter. But these are generous odds for a ball-striker of Young’s stature, and we’ll gladly take the payout if he can find his flatstick in a low-pressure setting, against a limited field.

Long shot: Justin Rose, +2,500

At 43, a resurgent Rose traveled far from home this fall to compete for Team Europe in the Ryder Cup, in Rome. No need for that this week. This is a stay-and-play for Rose, who lives at Albany, and should be tan, ready and rested for the event.

Tiger Woods to finish outside the top 10, -300

Woods is the GOAT. He’s also only human. More than 7 months removed from his last tournament start, a WD at the Masters, with yet another surgery on his medical record, Woods will be hard-pressed to make it through four days without limping or wincing. That alone would be a win. But finishing in the top half of an elite field given all he’s been through? We’re banking that’s beyond even Tiger’s reach.

Who Chirp users like this week

To make your own Chirp picks and win amazing prizes, download the app here.

Josh Sens

Golf.com Contributor

A golf, food and travel writer, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Magazine contributor since 2004 and now contributes across all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Sportswriting. He is also the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Fun Yet: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.

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