Featured Group: Johnson, Woods and Woodland

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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 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL: TOUR Report | Tee times | Expert picks | Power Rankings | Fantasy Insider

ORLANDO, Fla. -- It's not often Tiger Woods is the shortest-hitting player in the group, but he will be when he's paired with resident long bombers Dustin Johnson and Gary Woodland for the first two rounds of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard.

Officially, Johnson is second on the PGA TOUR in driving distance at 311.8 yards, while Woodland ranks eighth at 299.5 yards. Woods isn't exactly short, though -- he's 13th on the TOUR at 297.9 yards (unofficial with not enough rounds played).

"I'll be the Corey Pavin of my group," Woods joked. "Those guys will be bombing it way out there past me. It's a new game now. When I first came out on TOUR, I was second?longest on the TOUR in '96. There was only one guy at the time, John Daly, that was over 300. If you're not over 300 now, you're not in the Top 15. The game has really changed.

"The next two days is a perfect example of where the game has changed, where you've got two guys who used to play basketball are now playing golf and that's what I've been alluding to all these years. We are finally going to get athletes."

All three are freakishly good athletes. Woodland played basketball at Division II Washburn University before turning his attention to golf and transferring to Kansas (check out a photo gallery here.) Johnson, meanwhile, can dunk a basketball. Woods, of course, changed the way players treat fitness on TOUR.

Woodland is also coming off his first career win last week at the Transitions Championship -- Johnson and Woods are searching for their first victories of the season, though Johnson does have three top-10s, including two finishes in the top three.

Woods, meanwhile, has had plenty of success at Bay Hill, where he's won six times in his career. His last victory here came in 2009 when he sank a 12-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to win by one over Sean O'Hair.

Woods' other victories at Bay Hill came in 2000-2003 and 2008 and he is a combined 81 under in his 54 career rounds in the tournament. Woods' career scoring average of 70.06 in the event is also the lowest among players with 12 or more rounds (since 1983).

When Woods won here in 2008 and 2009 he relied on his short game, ranking second (77 percent) and first (72 prcent) in scrambling, respectively. He enters this week (unofficially) ranked 38th on TOUR in scrambling at 64 percent.

As for Johnson, he's coming off a runner-up finish at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship, where he led the field in total driving and scrambling. For the year he leads the TOUR in birdie average at 5.05 birdies per round.

Johnson is making just his third start at Bay Hill, where his best career finish is a tie for 40th.

Woodland is playing his first Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, but he's played well all year with four finishes in the top six in seven starts. As a result, Woodland is third in the FedExCup standings, while Johnson is 14th and Woods 100th.

MORE: Tiger talks about the featured group | Woods not taking putting lightly | Woodland interview

Statistical comparison

Key stats from Woods, Johnson, Woodland from the 2011 season (TOUR rank in parentheses)

Category WOODS   JOHNSON   WOODLAND   Driving distance 297.9 (13th)   311.8 (2nd)   299.5 (8th)   Driving accuracy 45.54% (191st)   54.66% (158th)   56.58% (144th)   Greens in regulation 69.44% (34th)   71.97% (11th)   71.37% (15th)   Putting average 1.780 (101st)   1.726 (21st)   1.713 (11th)   Scoring average 70.96 (80th)   70.35 (38th)   69.47 (4th)

EXPERT PREDICTIONS: We asked some of our PGATOUR.COM experts to predict which player will fare best this week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Stan Awtrey: Dustin Johnson: Other than a bad week at Pebble Beach (how did that happen?) he's done everything except win.

Craig Dolch: Tiger Woods. The 66 he shot in the final round at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship has given him renewed confidence heading to a place where he has dominated.

Melanie Hauser: Tiger. Six wins here says it all. The flashes we've seen over the past couple of months finally come together.

FANTASY INSIDER: All three players should in your Yahoo! line-up, according to this week's Fantasy Insider.