Tiger Woods favored to win The Barclays and his third FedEx Cup title

Tiger Woods, golf fans will hardly be shocked to learn, is the oddsmakers’ choice to win his third FedEx Cup title, starting with The Barclays this week at Liberty National Golf Course.

Woods, who has won five PGA Tour events in 2013, enters the first of four FedEx Cup tourneys as Bovada’s 5/1 favorite to win the opener in Jersey City, according to TheSpread.com. He may be 0-for-3 at The Barclays but, as No. 1 in the world and tops in FedEx Cup points, TheSpread says the 14-time major champion is the 3/1 pick of Bovada to cash the $10 million check that goes to the overall FedEx Cup winner.

The top 125 players in FedEx Cup points will tee it up in this week’s competition. For the opening two rounds, Woods drew defending FEC champ Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar, who is in second place in points. The trio will go off the 10th tee at 8:16 a.m. ET on Thursday and 1:06 p.m. off No. 1 in Friday’s second round.

The top 100 will advance to the Deutsche Bank Championship, slated for Aug. 30-Sept. 2 at TPC Boston in Norton, Mass., followed by next month’s 70-player tilt at the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club outside Chicago. The Tour Championship, at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, will host the 30 golfers who make it through the first three rounds.

As the only two-time FEC winner (2007 and 2009), Woods owns a 766-point lead over Kuchar in the standings, with Snedeker in third place. Though he has not hoisted the hardware in a playoff event since 2009 at the BMW Championship, Woods has won two other contests since the playoffs began in 2007: that year’s BMW and Tour Championships. He enters the week after a T40 finish at the PGA Championship, in which he finished 14 shots behind winner Jason Dufner.

World No. 2 and fourth-ranked in the FEC standings, Phil Mickelson takes on 2011 Tour champion Bill Haas and playoff newbie Billy Horschel in his first two rounds at Liberty National. Lefty’s tee times are 1:06 p.m. Thursday off No. 1 and 8:16 a.m. Friday off the 10th. Jordan Spieth, fresh from a runner-up finish after a playoff loss to Patrick Reed at last week’s Wyndham Classic, will meet U.S. Open winner Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson on the 10th tee at 8:05 a.m. on Thursday and No. 1 at 12:05 p.m. Friday.

Other marquee matchups include:

• Tiger tops FedEx Cup field

• 43 beers in PGA Championship trophy, and other tales from Dufner

• ’The Duf’ character and PGA a perfect match

• Tiger, Phil go quietly | Lefty has plane to catch

•Ian Poulter is NOT happy about all the shouting | Tiger giving up on ‘Sunday red’?