Harrington among the late starters
With top-10 finishes at both the Masters and US Open this season, Harrington is returning to the form that landed him back-to-back British Opens in 2007 and 2008 as well as a PGA Championship.
Paired for the first two rounds with American hot-shot Rickie Fowler and European amateur champion Manuel Trappel of Austria, the Irishman will tee off his opening round at 2:32pm in the 44th of 53 playing groups.
Harrington will be the last out of the six Irishmen in this year’s field, immediately following world number two Rory McIlroy, who sets out at 2:21pm with PGA champion Keegan Bradley and 2010 Open champion Louis Oosthuizen.
The others have a morning tee time with Darren Clarke set to begin his title defence alongside Ernie Els and ZachJohnson. Clarke, 43, tees off at 9:09am, closely followed at 9:31 by Graeme McDowell, Dustin Johnson and Japan’s Hiroyuki Fujita.
In between the Irishmen’s tee-time is another marquee group featuring world number three and home favourite Lee Westwood, Masters champion Bubba Watson and Japan’s Yoshinori Fujimoto while teeing off just after McDowell is three-time winner Tiger Woods, Spain’s Sergio Garcia and England’s Justin Rose.
The third Portrush resident in the field in addition to Clarke and McDowell is British Amateur champion Alan Dunbar, who will tee it up at 8:42am in the illustrious company of Australia’s Adam Scott and American Matt Kuchar.
Dunhill Links champion Michael Hoey is the first Irishman out on Thursday with former champion John Daly and Chad Campbell, both of the United States. Given the rainy conditions at Lytham, the Ulsterman was pleased at being handed an early start at 7:25am with a 12:26 tee time for Friday’s second round.
“If it stays as wet as this, the greens could get very spiked up,” Hoey said. “So it will be good to be out before they have too much traffic over them.’’
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