Before all the conjecture about conditions, changes to the course and whose game it may or may not suit, it is as well to leave nobody in any doubt that Tiger Woods is by far and away the man most likely to win this week’s Masters. There is no such thing as a guarantee in his profession, but if he is not to be found wearing the Green Jacket at Augusta National next Sunday night, heaven only knows who will.

All that stands between Woods and a fifth Masters title is nothing so specific as a certain individual, but rather the possibility that the field could throw up someone, anyone, with enough form to eclipse him over four consecutive days. The variables are too many, the demands of the course too much and the man himself so far down the road to greatness that it would stretch the boundaries of common sense to single out anyone else.

This, after all, is a player who seemed to be made for Augusta from the moment he won the 1997 event by a record margin, 12 strokes. Four times he has triumphed there, a total bettered only by Jack Nicklaus. He rounded off his Tiger Slam, holding all four majors but not in the same calendar year, by winning the 2001 Masters, and will use the 2008 event as the launch pad for the real thing, a feat he has described as “easily within reason”.

Add to that the form of his life - he has lost only two of the 11 tournaments he has entered since last summer’s Open - and there is no escaping his ability to begin another, even bigger, assault on history this week. Trying to identify a weakness, a statistical quirk, or even conditions in which Woods is less comfortable, has proved in the past to be a mug’s game. Either he is motivated by the insult, or he just hasn’t got round to winning that way yet.

They said he wasn’t suited to tight, finicky courses, and he won at Hoylake with a master-class in irons off the tee. They said he wasn’t so good on par70 layouts, where there are fewer par fives to tame, but it didn’t stop him at Southern Hills last summer. And yet, as the 72nd Masters approaches, and his readiness for it is again subject to the most rigorous scrutiny, there is just about enough evidence to give at least one of the tournament’s 92 other entrants a glimmer of hope. Woods, you see, doesn’t quite have the record with which he is credited at Augusta, not in recent years anyway. The world No 1 has triumphed only once in the past five Masters. Phil Mickelson has won two of the past four.

The trouble, it seems, is the course, and the changes it has undergone. Woods has no problem with the additional length but the narrowing of the fairways, the planting of trees and the growing of rough, albeit not very thick, has granted him less of the freedom on which he thrives. If anything about his game can be described as a weakness, it would be his erratic driving, which the new Augusta is not so inclined to let him get away with. If it is warm and damp, the course will play long, and into Woods’s hands. In those circumstances, fewer wayward drives run out of fairway, the table-top greens are more receptive, and the raw power required to plot a route round the former nursery reduces the list of contenders to a select few.

If it is cold and brittle, and the fairways as firm and fast as they were last year, the possibilities multiply. Zach Johnson, a plodding, cautious player of limited physical strength, took full advantage 12 months ago, when he kept the ball in play, refused to attack the par fives, and demonstrated that the imaginative shot-making for which Augusta used to be renowned no longer applies.

His victory was not a freak. England’s Luke Donald isn’t the most powerful off the tee, nor the most flamboyant around the greens, but his consistent accuracy last year meant he was a contender until halfway through the final round, when he triple-bogeyed the ninth. He has made a bright start to the PGA Tour season, with a couple of top-three finishes already. Justin Rose is another relatively short hitter who challenged 12 months ago. The Englishman who had the 36-hole lead in 2004, only to shoot a third-round 81, was just a stroke off last year’s pace when he double-bogeyed the 17th. He is a sure enough putter to master Augusta’s notorious greens, but after a top12 finish in each of last year’s majors, does he have the temperament for the next step? “It’s a small gap in terms of your game, a big gap in terms of believing in yourself,” he admits.

“At Augusta last year, I felt really comfortable, and enjoyed the moment, but I had one bad shot. It wasn’t even that bad a shot, but it cost me a double. In majors, the courses are set up much harder, and your game is tested to a different level, but it’s mainly about your nerve. The majors are where it is tested most. "

Padraig Harrington, the Open champion, has already overcome that hurdle, and will fancy his chances this week, irrespective of the weather. He tied for seventh last year, and would have been higher had he not made the same mistake as Woods, hitting his second into water on the par-five5 15th. The Irishman hits it long, tops the putting charts on the PGA Tour, and might just have what it takes to deny the world No 1.

With the latter’s so-called rivals, such as Mickelson and Ernie Els, hardly firing on all cylinders, maybe there is just a chance, 20 years after Sandy Lyle led the way, that someone from these isles could come through.

Then again, at Augusta, with Woods in the field, playing better than ever, maybe not.