Woods drawn with Bjorn and Wittenberg

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).

"I played with Casey today, and he's 19," Woods told a news conference on Tuesday after completing his second practice round of the week.

"I was trying to remember back when I first played in my first Masters (in 1995) and I was 19 years old. It's hard to believe that it was 10 years ago."

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.