Irish in good company at St Andrews

Charlie Mulqueen

Pádraig Harrington, a definite non-starter now following the death of his father Paddy, was due to go on at 1.20pm on Thursday with Chris DiMarco and Nick Price.

Paul McGinley has a 2.09pm start alongside Sergio Garcia and Tom Lehman. Graeme McDowell is in the very next match with Justin Leonard and Mark Hensby, while Darren Clarke is partnered at 12.25pm by Ernie Els and US Players champion Fred Funk. By and large, the three main Irish hopefuls should be satisfied with the way the draw has materialised, with none out later than 9.09am on Friday.

Peter Lawrie lines out with Mardan Mamat from Singapore and Tom Byrum of the US at 12.03pm.

Donegal’s British amateur champion Brian McElhinney will have American Jerry Kelly and Australian Craig Parry as company on the first tee at 7.03am.

The R&A have come up with a number of other fascinating threeballs, most notably Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Luke Donald at 7.47am and Tiger Woods, Jose-Maria Olazabal and Robert Allenby at 8.20am.