Harrington to play alongside Leonard and Goosen at Open

Padraig Harrington will start the defence of his Open Championship title alongside 1997 winner Justin Leonard and twice US Open champion Retief Goosen at the Southport links, it was announced today.

The Dubliner, conqueror of Sergio Garcia in a play-off at Carnoustie last July, starts at 7.58am on Thursday.

Ireland's Graeme McDowell, winner of the Scottish Open this weekend, partners 2004 winner Hamilton and South African Rory Sabbatini at 12.36pm.

Paul Casey will be able to feed off the memory of one of the best days of his golfing life after being paired again with Phil Mickelson.

Four years ago at Royal Troon the pair were also drawn together and Casey shot a five under par 66 to be the joint first round leader.

The Englishman could not keep it going then, however. He managed only a 77 the following day and finished joint 20th while Mickelson came back from his opening 73 to miss the play-off between Todd Hamilton and Ernie Els by one shot - easily his best Open performance.

They will tee off at Royal Birkdale at 9.20am, with Japan's Hideto Tanihara as the third member of the group.

Justin Rose is off even earlier than that on his return to the course where, as a 17-year-old amateur, he finished a spectacular fourth 10 years ago.

Rose's tee-off time is 7.36am and he plays with five-time champion Tom Watson, winner at Birkdale in 1983, and Australian Aaron Baddeley.

Garcia and Ernie Els are the two favourites in the absence through injury of Tiger Woods and they are at opposite ends of the draw.

Els is another early starter, going out at 8.31am, with American Scott Verplank and rising German star Martin Kaymer, but Garcia has to wait until 2.31pm to begin his bid.

The Spaniard, runner-up in the European Open two weeks ago, has Japan's Ryuji Imada and American Sean O'Hair for company.

Colin Montgomerie plays with Canadian left-hander Mike Weir and American Boo Weekley at 9.31am and Lee Westwood is around half an hour earlier than that 2003 champion Ben Curtis and Korean KJ Choi.

The distinction of hitting the first shot - at 6.30am - falls to Australian Craig Parry, while the last group qualifiers, England's Jonathan Lomas and Peter Appleyard and Japan's Yoshinobu Tsukada are not teeing off until 4.21pm and might struggle to finish before darkness if play is slow.