Featured Group: McDowell, Woods, Mickelson at Doral (PGATOUR.com)

At each PGA TOUR event this season, a featured pairing will be highlighted prior to the first round. Here is the featured group for Thursday and Friday at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship.

WGC-CADILLAC CHAMPIONSHIP:
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Tee times | Expert picks | Power Rankings | Fantasy Insider

RELATED: Numbers behind Mickelson-Woods pairings | Top rivalries | Top 10 Shots: Tiger | Top 10 Shots: Phil

DORAL, Fla.—Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have been paired together 25 times. They’ll add to that on Thursday and Friday, along with Graeme McDowell, at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship.

The threesome will tee off at 11:51 a.m. ET on Thursday off the 10th tee and 12:54 p.m. ET Friday off the first tee. Golf Channel’s coverage begins at 2 p.m. ET on both days.

The last time Woods and Mickelson were paired together was in the final round of last year’s BMW Championship. Woods shot a 1-under 70 and tied for 15th, while Mickelson shot a 4-under 67 to tie for eighth.

Eleven times Woods has posted a lower score than Mickelson when the two have been paired, while Mickelson has gone lower than Woods 10 times. Four times they’ve shot the same score.

This week will also mark the seventh time the two have played together in the opening round of a tournament.

McDowell, meanwhile, last played with Woods in the final round of the Chevron World Challenge, where he rallied from a four-shot deficit with a 69 to force a playoff before beating Woods with a birdie from just over 20 feet on the first extra hole.

Since then, McDowell has played the best of the three. He was third in the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions, tied for ninth in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, was third in Abu Dhabi and tied for sixth in last week’s Honda Classic.

Mickelson and Woods haven’t been nearly as consistent—though both are former winners here. Mickelson was victorious in 2009, despite a bout with heat exhaustion, while Woods won an epic duel with Mickelson here in 2005 and then again in 2006.

In all, Woods has won 71 times on the PGA TOUR. Sixteen of those victories came at World Golf Championships events. Mickelson, meanwhile, has 38 on the TOUR. Two of those were at World Golf Championships events.

McDowell, of course, has the fewest victories of the three with just nine wins around the globe but is the reigning U.S. Open champion.

EXPERT PREDICTIONS: We asked some of our PGATOUR.COM experts to predict which player will fare best this week at the WGC-Cadillac.

Stan Awtrey: Graeme McDowell: He’s looking strong again, as last week’s sixth-place showing at the Honda Classic showed. Long, straight and unflappable. He was sixth at Doral last year and is looking like he could be among the favorites by the time the Masters rolls around.

Craig Dolch: Tiger Woods hasn’t won in 16 months, but in seven starts on the TPC Blue Monster, he’s a combined 100-under par. That’s an average score of 68.43. I think this familiarity and success will help get him back in contention again.

Melanie Hauser: Gmac. Experience vs. Momentum. Six wins? One win? Two top-10s? Tiger and Phil are still searching, but they could win, no question. Still going with G-Mac, who is on a serious roll.

FANTASY INSIDER: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are both A-players in this week’s Fantasy Insider, but they’re not in the group you might think.

Rob Bolton explains, saying of Woods that he’s still grinding through swing changes and course history doesn’t matter. Meanwhile, Bolton maintains that Mickelson’s “focus is clearly on ramping up to the Masters, so while he should work his way to a top 15 blindfolded this week, our expectations remain higher.”