Woods prepares for US Open

Tiger Woods has played a practice round at Torrey Pines ahead of next week's US Open.

Coming off knee surgery performed two days after finishing second at The Masters, Woods had not played a round since Augusta.

He got in 17 holes on Wednesday, picking up his ball about 100 yards from the 18th green after seeing that a group of people had begun to gather.

According to the report, Woods began his round at 8am local time and played for three hours 15 minutes under tight security.

No media or spectators were allowed on the South Course at the time Woods was playing.

Woods won his sixth Buick Invitational here in January and no player has been as successful at Torrey Pines.

Despite that success, Woods could not afford to wait to see what the USGA has cooked up on the course.

Woods and everyone else knows that the layout will be significantly different than it was in January and time is running out to get a private look at the changes.

Woods has been down this road before, but just under different circumstances.

He did not play between The Masters and US Open in 2006 due to the death of his father Earl.

Woods missed the cut at Winged Foot, marking the first time he had missed the cut in a major as a professional.

The first round of the US Open is June 12.

Woods will be paired with world number two Phil Mickelson and third-ranked Adam Scott after the top groupings were announced.

Woods and Mickelson played together once before at the US Open, in the third round at Pinehurst in 1999.

The late Payne Stewart won that year, with Mickelson second and Woods third.

Ernie Els, Justin Rose and Geoff Ogilvy make up another trio. Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh will be together. And KJ Choi, Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker make up the other big-name grouping.

All told, the top 12 players in the world will be accounted for in the four groups. The rest of the groupings will be announced Thursday.