Golf: Rose and Lawrie Drawn to Play With Woods for the Open

England's Justin Rose and Scot Paul Lawrie have been paired with Tiger Woods for the first two rounds of the Open Championship at Carnoustie later this week. The world No1 begins his bid for a third title in a row - something last achieved by Australian Peter Thomson - at 9.09am on Thursday.

Lawrie was the winner of the last Carnoustie Open in 1999, but has since slipped to 282nd in the world. That is even lower than when he beat Jean Van de Velde and Justin Leonard in a four-hole play-off, having started the final day 10 strokes behind the Frenchman. Rose's best Open finish remains his fourth place as a 17-year-old amateur at Birkdale in 1998, and he was also paired with Woods at Muirfield in 2002.

Woods was halfway towards a first-ever grand slam of all four majors in one season that year, having won the Masters and US Open, but in foul weather on the Saturday his chance disappeared when he slumped to an 81. He did come back with a closing 65, but finished down in 28th place. Rose, 21 at the time, out-scored Woods by two with his opening 68 to be only one off the lead, but then scored a second-round 75 and ended up 22nd.

Last December in Australia the Hampshire player ended five years without a victory and at the Masters in April he was one behind Zach Johnson with two to play, but double-bogeyed the 17th and slipped to fifth. Rose had another chance to end Europe's eight-year drought in the majors - right back to Lawrie's victory - at the US Open last month when he was joint third with Paul Casey with a round to go, but finished 10th.

With the Open back in Scotland, Colin Montgomerie is bound to attract a huge following as well, especially after his European Open victory eight days ago. But the crowd might have expected to see bigger names than Japan's Toshi Izawa and American Stewart Cink alongside him.

Similarly, Britain's top-ranked player Luke Donald, who was paired with Woods at Sandwich in 2003, might be surprised to see Welsh amateur Llewellyn Matthews, a qualifier last week, with him and American Charles Howell.

Padraig Harrington also has an amateur partner. Scot Richie Ramsay earned an exemption last August by becoming the first British winner of the US Amateur since 1911 and, having partnered Phil Mickelson in the Masters and Woods at the US Open, he joins Harrington and former US PGA champion David Toms.

World No2 Phil Mickelson partners Lee Westwood and Japan's Toru Taniguchi, while Swede Niclas Fasth and England's Nick Dougherty, Europe's top two finishers at the US Open in fourth and eighth place respectively, partner world No3 Jim Furyk, who was runner-up at Oakmont to Angel Cabrera.

The Argentinian Cabrera has South African Rory Sabbatini and American O'Hair for company, while Masters champion Zach Johnson is with Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell and double Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal, if the Spaniard is fit to play after his recent knee trouble. He is making a decision tomorrow and American Tom Pernice is first reserve. American Joe Durant will hit the first shot at 6.30am and the last player to tee off will be England's Benn Barham at 4.21pm.

Tee-off times in full

0630 & 1141 Joe Durant (USA), Oliver Wilson, Ben Bunny (Aus)

0641 & 1152 Kevin Stadler (USA), Graeme Storm, David Higgins

0652 & 1203 Adilson Da Silva (Bra), Gregory Bourdy (Fra), Matt Kuchar (USA)

0703 & 1214 Vaughn Taylor (USA), Peter Fowler (Aus), (x) David Coupland

0714 & 1225 Ross Bain, Duffy Waldorf (USA), John Bickerton

0725 & 1236 Scott Drummond, Rod Pampling (Aus), Steve Stricker (USA)

0736 & 1247 KJ Choi (Kor), Richard Sterne (Rsa), David Howell

0747 & 1258 Stuart Appleby (Aus), John Rollins (USA), Raphael Jacquelin (Fra)

0758 & 1309 Michael Campbell (Nzl), Darren Clarke, Chris DiMarco (USA)

0809 & 1320 Retief Goosen (Rsa), Thomas Bjorn (Den), Justin Leonard (USA)

0820 & 1331 Geoff Ogilvy (Aus), Anthony Wall, Todd Hamilton (USA)

0831 & 1342 (x) Drew Weaver, Paul Casey, Stephen Ames (Can)

0842 & 1353 Nick Faldo, Trevor Immelman (Rsa), Carl Pettersson (Swe)

0858 & 1409 Adam Scott (Aus), Davis Love (USA), Hideto Tanihara (Jpn)

0909 & 1420 Tiger Woods (USA), Paul Lawrie, Justin Rose

0920 & 1431 Ian Poulter, Scott Verplank (USA), Mike Weir (Can)

0931 & 1442 Colin Montgomerie, Toshi Izawa (Jpn), Stewart Cink (USA)

0942 & 1453 Tom Lehman (USA), Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind), Nick O'Hern (Aus)

0953 & 1504 Michael Putnam (USA), David Shacklady, Tomohiro Kondo (Jpn)

1004 & 1515 Paul McGinley, JJ Henry (USA), John Senden (Aus)

1015 & 1526 Markus Brier (Aut), Gregory Havret (Fra), Rich Beem (USA)

1026 & 1537 Ryan Moore (USA), Pelle Edberg (Swe), Dong-Hwan Lee (Kor)

1037 & 1548 Adam Groom (Aus), Fredrik Andersson Hed (Swe), Hunter Mahan (USA)

1048 & 1559 Peter Baker, Mark Foster, Spencer Levin (USA)

1059 & 1610 Mattias Eliasson (Swe), Justin Kehoe, David Gleeson (Aus)

1110 & 1621 Won Joon Lee (Aus), Doug McGuigan, Toshinori Muto (Jpn)

1141 & 0630 Jerry Kelly (USA), Paul Broadhurst, Mark Hensby (Aus)

1152 & 0641 Sandy Lyle, Shaun Micheel (USA), Andres Romero (Arg)

1203 & 0652 Charl Schwartzel (Rsa), Mark Calcavecchia (USA), Ross Fisher

1214 & 0703 Peter Hanson (Swe), Brett Wetterich (USA), Matthew Zions (Aus)

1225 & 0714 Anders Hansen (Den), David Frost (Rsa), Richard Green (Aus)

1236 & 0725 Robert Karlsson (Swe), Ernie Els (Rsa), Lucas Glover (USA)

1247 & 0736 John Daly (USA), Bradley Dredge, Robert Allenby (Aus)

1258 & 0747 Luke Donald, Charles Howell (USA), (x) Llewellyn Matthews

1309 & 0758 Angel Cabrera (Arg), Rory Sabbatini (USA), Sean O'Hair (USA)

1320 & 0809 Padraig Harrington, (x) Richie Ramsay, David Toms (USA)

1331 & 0820 Jim Furyk (USA), Niclas Fasth (Swe), Nick Dougherty

1342 & 0831 (x) Rory McIlroy, Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa), Henrik Stenson (Swe)

1353 & 0842 Vijay Singh (Fij), Arron Oberholser (USA), Brian Davis

1409 & 0858 Aaron Baddeley (Aus), Ben Curtis (USA), (x) Paul Waring

1420 & 0909 Phil Mickelson (USA), Toru Taniguchi (Jpn), Lee Westwood

1431 & 0920 Graeme McDowell, Zach Johnson (USA), Jose Maria Olazabal (Spa)

1442 & 0931 Sergio Garcia (Spa), Chad Campbell (USA), Johan Edfors (Swe)

1453 & 0942 Achi Sato (Jpn), Brett Quigley (USA), Francesco Molinari (Ita)

1504 & 0953 Mark O'Meara (USA), Loren Roberts (USA), Tony Jacklin

1515 & 1004 Boo Weekley (USA), Jon Bevan, Paul Sheehan (Aus)

1526 & 1015 Pat Perez (USA), Yong-Eun Yang (Kor), Kevin Harper

1537 & 1026 Ewan Porter (Aus), Jonathan Byrd (USA), Alastair Forsyth

1548 & 1037 Steve Alker (Nzl), Nick Watney (USA), Desvonde Botes (Rsa)

1559 & 1048 Charley Hoffman (USA), Chih Bing Lam (Sin), Steve Parry

1610 & 1059 Scott Laycock (Aus), Anders Hultman (Swe), Seung-Ho Lee (Kor)

1621 & 1110 Jose-Filipe Lima (Por), Terry Pilkadaris (Aus), Benn Barham