Masters 2012: Why Tiger Woods Deserves to Be the Favorite at Year's First Major

The 2012 PGA season has been in full swing for a couple of months at this point, and the year's first major is upon us. The Masters will get underway a week from Thursday.

Here's a spoiler: Tiger Woods is going to make plenty of noise at Augusta National. For that matter, he should be considered the favorite to win the whole thing.

The early odds do indeed have Tiger as the favorite on the heels of his win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. According to Bovada, Tiger's odds of winning the tournament stand strong at 7/2, placing him just ahead of world No. 2 Rory McIlroy.

Great. All Tiger has to do now is win the tournament, which would be his 15th major victory overall and his first since 2008.

Here are a few reasons why he can do it.

Momentum

Momentum is something that is totally overrated when it comes to golf, as even the best golfers in the world can go from hitting fairways and sinking birdies to hitting from the rough and three-putting their way to ugly scorecards.

For an example, you can think back to Phil Mickelson at last year's Masters. He scored a victory at the Shell Houston Open the week before and then finished tied for 27th at Augusta National.

However, momentum is something that is more important in Tiger's case than it would be concerning any other golfer. Tiger hasn't been able to establish any momentum in years, so the fact that he has some now coming off his first (official) tournament victory since 2009 is a very good sign.

It's not so much that Tiger is heading into the Masters playing well. This has more to do with his confidence, which has to be as high as it's been since his eventful winter in 2009.

Tiger Was Able to Finish What He Started

Through all of Tiger's various struggles since his return to the tour in 2010, we saw flashes of brilliance that made it apparent that the old Tiger Woods was still out there somewhere.

The trouble was Tiger was simply unable to build on his flashes of brilliance. An impressive round would be followed by a disappointing one, and a good first couple of rounds would be followed by a bad couple of rounds. Occasionally, he switched things up by starting poorly and then finishing with a flourish when it was too little, too late.

At the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Tiger was able to stay steady through all four rounds. He got off to a hot start to jump to the top of the leaderboard heading into the weekend, and then held off the rest of the field with solid under-par scores in each of the final two rounds.

I'll be honest and say that I was expecting him to blow it. Goodness knows Tiger spent prior years giving me, and everyone else, enough reason to believe that he would. But he didn't, and that's as good a sign as ever that Tiger is close to being the dominant player he once was.

Room for Error

Why was Tiger so good at the Arnold Palmer Invitational?

It had a lot to do with how consistently he was finding greens in regulation. According to Bob Harig of ESPN.com, Tiger led the field in greens in regulation. In particular, he was money on par-fives, playing them at 12-under par.

Tiger putt the ball well too, but the more important thing is that he was able to drive the ball accurately and use his irons effectively to get on the green without too many wild adventures.

If he can do that at Augusta National, he's going to be in very good shape even if his putting is a little off. As long as he's getting on the greens in regulation, he'll be able to avoid disaster.

Familiarity

Tiger knows Augusta National like the back of his hand. 

This has been more apparent than ever in the last couple of years. Tiger's game was a work in progress in both 2010 and 2011, yet he managed to finish tied for fourth at the Masters both years.

Tiger's high finishes were due to the fact that he just plain knew what to do when he set out at Augusta National. It's a course he's played countless times, and you can tell by his results at the Masters that he's very comfortable there. He's won the Masters four times, and has finished in the top 10 seven years in a row.

Given his track record, Tiger is a lock to at least finish in the top 10 at this year's tournament. Because so many things have come together for him recently, you better believe he has a very strong chance of winning the whole thing.