McDowell set for Woods reunion

GRAEME McDOWELL will have another chance to get one over on Tiger Woods starting tomorrow after the pair were grouped together for the first two rounds of the Masters in yesterday’s draw.

The reigning US Open champion scored a massive psychological boost last December when he beat 14-time major winner Woods in a play-off at the American’s own invitational event, the Chevron World Challenge in California. And now the pair will be reunited at Augusta National, McDowell being grouped with four-time Masters winner Woods and Robert Allenby in one of the marquee groupings.

McDowell is set to tee off at 3:41pm (Irish time), the last of the Irish competitors to get their Masters campaigns under way. Rory McIlroy is out first among them, at 2:24pm (Irish time), having been paired with fellow young guns Rickie Fowler and Jason Day.

McIlroy, at 21, is the youngest of that trio but in making his third start at Augusta National is the most experienced of the group, with both Fowler, 22, and Day, 23, making their Masters debuts this week.

Padraig Harrington completes the Irish contingent and he has some youthful company in 19-year-old phenomenon Ryo Ishikawa of Japan as well as American Bill Haas when he tees off at 2:57pm (Irish time).

Defending champion Phil Mickelson is off in the penultimate group of the first round, at 6:48pm, grouped with American amateur Peter Uihlein and former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, while the world’s numbers one and two, Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood, share a group with American Ryder Cup star Matt Kuchar, off at 3:19pm.