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A couple familiar faces will not be at Royal St. George’s for the 140th playing of the Open Championship. Some failed to qualify while others withdrew.

Perhaps most notably among those not participating this year are Colin Montgomerie and Vijay Singh.

Monty had a chance to make his way into the field this past week at Castle Stuart in his nation’s open, but fizzled down the stretch after a promising start. Monty opened the tournament strongly, putting him in contention on Sunday afternoon, needing a top five finish for his chance to tee it up in his 22nd consecutive British Open.

Monty did just that, reaching a tie for fifth with a birdie at the par-5 sixth hole. He was unable to hold his posiition, however, stumbling in to the clubhouse with a back nine 37, finishing in a tie for 31st.

As for Singh, he received a special exemption for finishing T-2 in Ben Curtis’ win at Royal St. George’s. Unfortunately, Singh had to withdraw today, but did not cite a reason. Smart money would be on the ailing back pain that caused him to pull out of the AT&T National last week. In an ironic twist, the man Singh tied for second with eight years ago, Thomas Bjorn, was the next alternate on the list and will take his place.

Among others who qualified at the last minute was Sergio Garcia. Garcia was in jeopardy of ending his own majors streak earlier this year, but got into the US Open through regional qualifying. Still not in the Open Championship field before the BMW International Open in Munich two weeks ago, Garcia lost in a playoff to fellow countryman Pablo Larrazabal. However, the top two finishers in the mini-money list of six European Tour events, starting with the BMW PGA Championship and ending in Munich, earned exemptions. Garcia’s second-place finish did just that, extending his majors streak to 49 straight.

Similar to the way Kevin Stanley earned his exemption this week, finishing as the top player not to already have an exemption, Charles Howell III punched his ticket two weeks ago at the AT&T after a final-round 66 moved him up to third place.

Other late additions to the field include Webb Simpson, JB Holmes, Steve Marino, Brendan Jones and Yuta Ikeda due to other means and spots opened up by past champions Nick Faldo and Greg Norman who are not playing.

As is the custom if the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews, they announce the pairings for the British Open on Monday to give everyone time ratchet up interest in key pairings.

There are a few pairings that naturally catch your eye and will fit in just perfectly for the television audiences in the morning as well as the afternoon. An advantage famous to the British Open is the long summer days which allows all players to tee off on the first hole. There are 52 groups of three players each that will begin at 6:30 a.m. local time. Sandwich is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time meaning play will begin in the US at 1:30 a.m.

Coverage starts at 4 a.m. on Thursday and Friday on ESPN and will go until the 6 p.m. SportsCenter.

A couple of groups to watch for are highlighted in red below. Four in the morning and four in the even earlier morning. Let me know what you’re favorite groupings are in the comments.

1 – 06:30 – Jerry KELLY – Nathan GREEN – Danny WILLETT
2 – 06:41 – Thongchai JAIDEE – Mark CALCAVECCHIA – Graeme STORM
3 – 06:52 – Gregory HAVRET – Charley HOFFMAN – Markus BRIER
4 – 07:03 – Todd HAMILTON – Simon KHAN – Prayad MARKSAENG
5 – 07:14 – Rhys DAVIES – Fredrik JACOBSON – Mark O’MEARA
6 – 07:25 – Thomas BJORN – Simon DYSON – Gary WOODLAND
7 – 07:36 – KT KIM – Ryan MOORE – Alvaro QUIROS
8 – 07:47 – Bo VAN PELT – KJ CHOI – Martin LAIRD
9 – 07:58 – Stephen GALLACHER – Bill HAAS – Hiroyuki FUJITA
10 – 08:09 – Geoff OGILVY – Peter UIHLEIN – Miguel Angel JIMENEZ
11 – 08:20 – Francesco MOLINARI – Tetsuji HIRATSUKA – Stewart CINK
12 – 08:31 – Nick WATNEY – Matteo MANASSERO – Angel CABRERA
13 – 08:42 – Yuta IKEDA – Ian POULTER – Dustin JOHNSON
14 – 08:58 – Ben CURTIS – Paul CASEY – Aaron BADDELEY
15 – 09:09 – Ernie ELS – Rory McILROY – Rickie FOWLER
16 – 09:20 – Luke DONALD – Ryo ISHIKAWA – Sergio GARCIA
17 – 09:31 – Retief GOOSEN – Hunter MAHAN – Anders HANSEN
18 – 09:42 – Brian DAVIS – Camilo VILLEGAS – David DUVAL
19 – 09:53 – John DALY – Ross FISHER – Peter HANSON
20 – 10:04 – Gregory BOURDY – Jason DUFNER – Craig HINTON
21 – 10:15 – Alexander NOREN – Paul LAWRIE – Kevin NA
22 – 10:26 – Sean O’HAIR – Seung-Yul NOH – Thorbjorn OLESEN
23 – 10:37 – Simon EDWARDS – Bob ESTES – Richard McEVOY
24 – 10:48 – Francis McGUIRK – Matthew MILLAR – Kevin STREELMAN
25 – 10:59 – Mark LASKEY – Thomas SHADBOLT – Rick KULACZ
26 – 11:10 – Simon LILLY – Chris TIDLAND – Neil SCHIETEKAT
27 – 11:31 – Peter WHITEFORD – Spencer LEVIN – Thomas AIKEN
28 – 11:42 – Prom MEESAWAT – Martin MARITZ – Harrison FRAZAR
29 – 11:53 – Chad CAMPBELL – Kenneth FERRIE – Scott JAMIESON
30 – 12:04 – Raphael JACQUELIN – Mark WILSON – Kyle STANLEY
31 – 12:15 – Steve MARINO – Richard GREEN – Pablo LARRAZABAL
32 – 12:26 – Rory SABBATINI – Sandy LYLE – Anthony KIM
33 – 12:37 – Edoardo MOLINARI – Charles HOWELL III – Joost LUITEN
34 – 12:48 – Brandt SNEDEKER – Lucas BJERREGAARD – Trevor IMMELMAN
35 – 12:59 – Darren CLARKE – Jonathan BYRD – YE YANG
36 – 13:10 – Lucas GLOVER – Hiroo KAWAI – Robert KARLSSON
37 – 13:21 – Bryden MACPHERSON – Matt KUCHAR – Padraig HARRINGTON
38 – 13:32 – Zach JOHNSON – Adam SCOTT – Justin ROSE
39 – 13:43 – Graeme McDOWELL – Jason DAY – Bubba WATSON
40 – 13:59 – Jim FURYK – Bernhard LANGER – Tadahiro TAKAYAMA
41 – 14:10 – Lee WESTWOOD – Steve STRICKER – Charl SCHWARTZEL
42 – 14:21 – Louis OOSTHUIZEN – Martin KAYMER – Phil MICKELSON
43 – 14:32 – Henrik STENSON – Tom LEWIS – Tom WATSON
44 – 14:43 – Robert ALLENBY – Davis LOVE III – Fredrik ANDERSSON HED
45 – 14:54 – Nicolas COLSAERTS – JB HOLMES – SM BAE
46 – 15:05 – Webb SIMPSON – Robert ROCK – Alejandro CANIZARES
47 – 15:16 – Kurt BARNES – Justin LEONARD – Jeff OVERTON
48 – 15:27 – Lee CORFIELD – Ben CRANE – Floris DE VRIES
49 – 15:38 – Ryan PALMER – Tom LEHMAN – Adam WOOTTON
50 – 15:49 – Jung-Gon HWANG – Gary BOYD – Robert GARRIGUS
51 – 16:00 – George COETZEE – Andy SMITH – Brad KENNEDY
52 – 16:11 – Jason KNUTZON – Andrew JOHNSTON – Chih-Bing LAM