Rose drawn with Woods at St Andrews

Justin Rose
12 April 2012

Justin Rose, winner of two of his last three tournaments in America, will partner world number one Tiger Woods in the first two rounds of the Open Championship at St Andrews.

Rose, now back up to 16th in the world rankings, has been drawn with Woods and Colombian Camilo Villegas. They tee off at 9.09am on Thursday and 2.20pm on Friday.

It will not be the first time they have been drawn together in the event. Eight years ago at Muirfield the British golfer, only 21 at the time, out-scored Woods 68 to 70 in the first round, but followed it up with only a 75 to the American's 68.

Woods was the reigning Masters and US Open champion at the time, but his bid for golf's first-ever Grand Slam of all four majors in one season was effectively ended by an 81 in Saturday storms.

This time Woods goes looking for a third successive victory at the 'Home of Golf', having won by eight strokes in 2000 and five in 2005.

Rose, still remembered for his fourth-place finish at Royal Birkdale as a 17-year-old amateur in 1998, was European number one three seasons ago and made his Ryder Cup debut the following September.

But after suffering a mini-slump it is only in the past six weeks that he has burst back to prominence. He won the Memorial tournament in Ohio and after blowing a lead on the final day of the Travelers Championship three weeks ago, he came straight back and lifted the AT&T National title.

Current Masters champion Phil Mickelson, who has another chance to topple Woods as world number one this week, begins his challenge at 2.20pm in the company of Colin Montgomerie and Retief Goosen.

Teeing off just behind Woods and Rose will be 60-year-old Tom Watson, loser of a play-off to Stewart Cink at Turnberry last year after incredibly leading by one with one to play. Five-time champion Watson partners two-time winner Padraig Harrington and 18-year-old Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa.

Graeme McDowell, the new US Open champion, plays with American Jim Furyk and Australian Geoff Ogilvy at 1.53pm, while Cink starts his defence of the trophy alongside Ian Poulter and Ernie Els at 8.42am.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in