Golf odds: The Memorial

The PGA Tour stops at Jack Nicklaus' tournament this week, the Memorial at the Muirfield Village Course in Dublin, Ohio.

As usual, Tiger Woods has overshadowed the rest of the PGA Tour this week. Tiger, who had surgery April 15 to fix cartilage problems in his knee, originally hoped to return this week, but he's still rehabbing – and limping.

Still, he plans on being ready for the U.S. Open in a few weeks.

"The knee's doing better," Woods said. "The rehab is boring. It gets really old riding that bike, man. But everything's on schedule. Just been training and trying to get this thing organized for the Open, and it's right on schedule for that."

As for who is at the Memorial, it's a good field.

Defending champ K.J. Choi (+2200 on WagerWeb.com) returns this year. Last year, Choi won by a stroke over Ryan Moore. Choi said victory rates very high among all his golfing achievements.

"The Memorial was a very special win for me. I started learning golf by reading Jack's books and to have won his tournament, I can't even put into words how big it was for me," he said.

Choi and most of the other players in this week's field are say the rough is much more punitive than a year ago.

"This year the rough around the greens is two times longer than what it was last year," Choi said. "It's going to be very tough if you miss the green." World No. 2 Phil Mickelson (the WagerWeb.com favorite at +350) is here a week after his win at the Colonial. You may remember that it was this tournament last year that Lefty withdrew with wrist troubles that ended up hampering him all season.

Last week in Texas, Mickelson posted four rounds in the 60s, including a bogey-free 64 on Saturday. Lefty hit roughly 70 percent of the fairways and greens, then averaged 26.8 putts per round.

His best finish in eight appearances at the Memorial is a tie for fourth in 2006.

World No. 3 Ernie Els (currently off the board) also is playing this week. Els said Monday he wouldn't play but quickly changed his mind.

Els won this event in 2004, but only six different international players have done so: David Graham (Australia, 1980), Greg Norman (Australia, 1990 and 1995), Vijay Singh (Fiji, 1997), Ernie Els (South Africa, (2004, Carl Pettersson (Sweden, 2006) and Choi (South Korea, 2007).

Despite that lack of international success, Spain's Sergio Garcia is WagerWeb.com's second favorite at +875. One long-shot worth a look this week might be Mike Weir (+4500). The Canadian lefty finished 15th at the Colonial and has done well at the Memorial: he finished third in 2003 and fourth in 2000 at Muirfield Village.

Geoff Ogilvy (+1800) could be a threat this week coming off a T-7 finish last week. He has had plenty of success at Muirfield Village, finishing in the top 25 in three of the last four years.