November 3, 2009--The World Golf Championships HSBC Champions event tees off November 5 at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, and Tiger Woods is a 7/4 favorite to win the golf tournament, followed by Phil Mickelson at 12/1, in the golf betting odds released by Las Vegas' GolfOdds.com. The two go against each other for the first time since the PGA Tour's TOUR Championship, where Mickelson earned an impressive victory, but Woods collected the season-long FedEx Cup trophy. Mickelson works on his swing with Las Vegas resident Butch Harmon, who operates the Butch Harmon School of Golf at Las Vegas resort golf course Rio Secco Golf Club.

"My putting has really improved," said Mickelson to reporters in Singapore, where he finished 14th at the Singapore Open. "Since I began working with Butch Harmon I have been striking the ball better than ever, hitting it more confidently and driving the ball straighter and longer than I ever. However, I have not had the scores or the results because my performance on the greens has been bad over the past two years... I have not been consistently at a high level. Working with (putting coach) Dave Stockton has got me back the way I have always putted. I had slowly gravitated away from some of the techniques and feel I have grown up playing. He has reaffirmed all I believe in my short game. Hearing it from a guy who has won two PGAs had validated what I knew."

The Butch Harmon School of Golf is an incubator for the world's best talent, and is the site where many of the world's best golfers come to hone their swings. Some of the golfers currently with Harmon and/or his talented staff include Mickelson, Nick Watney, Ernie Els, British Open champ Stewart Cink, Natalie Gulbis, Charley Hoffman, Scott Piercy, and several others (Harmon also worked with Woods for about a decade). And the school if also open to the public and you can book your golf schools with Butch Harmon himself, learning the same things about the golf swing that the best learn on a daily basis. Click now for the official website of the Butch Harmon School of Golf.

Or you can click now to the official website of Las Vegas' Rio Secco Golf Club, site of the 2009 Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge that tees of next week (November 10). Rio Secco is a resort course that is open to all Las Vegas golfers and you can reserve your online Las Vegas golf tee times with the official management of the course. Rio Secco Golf Club is operated by Harrah's Entertainment, as is Cascata, a Las Vegas golf course that has been recognized for supreme excellence by ZAGAT. Both Rio Secco and Cascata are designed by Rees Jones.

Other golf betting odds for the HSBC Champions show Padraig Harrington at 15/1, Lee Westwood at 20/1, Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia at 25/1, and Singapore Open Champion Ian Poulter at 30/1 along with Els at 30/1. Former Las Vegas resident and Las Vegas golfer Ryan Moore is listed at 60/1 while Watney, a Las Vegas resident as well as working with Harmon, is at 80/1. Watney tuned up for the event by playing in the Greg Maddux/Butch Harmon Celebrity Invitational at Las Vegas' Spanish Trail Country Club last week. The field--all other golfers--is listed at 12/1.

Some of the individual betting matchups include Padraig Harrington (even) vs. Phil Mickelson (-120), Sergio Garcia (even) vs. Lee Westwood (-120), Ross Fisher (-110) vs. Ian Poulter (-110), Ernie Els (-115) vs. Retief Goosen (-105), Matt Kuchar (-110) vs. Ryan Moore (-110), and Steve Marino (-110) vs. Pat Perez (-110). All of the updated Las Vegas golf betting odds can be found at GolfOdds.com, a website created by leading Las Vegas betting expert Jeff Sherman. Sherman is also the Assistant Director of the Las Vegas Hilton Superbook.