The Open: Top tee times

TIGER Woods will play alongside Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose in the opening two rounds of this week’s Open.

Woods, Spaniard Garcia and Rose will tee off at 9.42am in Thursday’s first round. The 36-year-old American is looking to end a four-year drought in major championships, having won the last of his 14 ‘big four’ titles at the 2008 US Open. Garcia, 32, and Rose, 31, are among the best modern-day players never to have won a major.

Among the other highlights of Monday’s draw was the grouping of world No 1 Luke Donald with American left-hander Phil Mickelson and Australian Geoff Ogilvy, who will tee off at 2.43.

World No 2 Rory McIlroy will partner 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and 2011 US PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley at 2.21.

Lee Westwood, the world No 3, was drawn with crowd-pleasing US Masters champion Bubba Watson and Japan’s Yoshinori Fujimoto.

Title holder Darren Clarke is to play alongside triple major champion Ernie Els and former US Masters winner Zach Johnson.

Sandy Lyle is the first Scot out on the course at 7.03 with Todd Hamilton and Mark Calcavecchia, while Scottish Open winer Jeev Milkha Singh is in the next group out at 7.14.

Paul Lawrie has been grouped with David Love and Tim Clark (8.31), while Martin Laird is with Kevin Na and Jason Duffner (10.15), and Elliot Saltman tees off with Sam Walker and Dale Whitnell (11.10).

Steven O’Hara will play with Bob Estes and Brendan Jones, teeing off at 11.31, with Richie Ramsay among the last groups with a 3.38pm tee-off in the company of Andres Romero and Jbe Kruger.

The honour of striking the first blow of the 141st edition of the championship will fall to Britain’s Barry Lane at 6.19.