AUGUSTA, April 7: Tiger Woods is in confident mood ahead of this week's U.S. Masters despite question marks about his form since his 2002 split with swing coach Butch Harmon.
The world number one will tee off at Augusta National in Thursday's opening round determined to return to winning ways in the majors after a barren run of six starts.
Woods has not won a major since the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black and the aura of invincibility he once enjoyed is all but gone. That also happened to be the year he decided to part company with Harmon.
Although he won the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at La Costa in February, the 28-year-old American has struggled for much of the last 12 months with his accuracy off the tee and the precision of his approach play.
However, the game's leading player feels no extra pressure going into the first of the year's four majors. Dry conditions in the build-up to this week's Masters have left the par-72 layout running fast and firm. Should those conditions prevail over the next five days, Woods expects fewer players to emerge as likely winners.
For the 2002 tournament, Augusta underwent significant changes. Nine of its holes were lengthened to stretch the famous layout to 7,270 yards, making it the fifth longest course in major championship history.
World number one Tiger Woods has been grouped with Denmark's Thomas Bjorn and 2003 U.S. amateur runner-up Casey Wittenberg for the first two rounds of the U.S. Masters starting on Thursday.
Three-times champion Woods will launch his bid for a first major victory since the 2002 U.S. Open at 1330 local time (1730 GMT). Defending champion Mike Weir, who became the first left-hander to win a major in 40 years at Augusta last April, has been drawn with 1997 British Open champion Justin Leonard and Australia's Nick Flanagan, who edged out Wittenberg at the 37th hole for last year's U.S. amateur title.
They start at 1319 (1719) on Thursday. British Open champion Ben Curtis will tee off at 0928 (1328) with New Zealand's Michael Campbell and Fredrik Jacobson of Sweden. American Shaun Micheel, who is the U.S. PGA champion, has an 0950 (1350) start on Thursday with seven-times European number one Colin Montgomerie of Britain and 50-year-old American Jay Haas. -Reuters
