U.S. Open 2013: Tee times and pairings for Thursday

The season’s second major begins just after dawn outside Philadelphia on Thursday, as 156 players begin the 2013 U.S. Open on the East Course of Merion Golf Club. The USGA’s national championship contains one of the largest fields all year on tour, requiring threesomes to go off split tees from sun-up to sun-down for the first two days of tournament play.

Much like last year at Olympic, the split tees aren’t evenly broken up, with players going off the back side at No. 11. Merion is a throwback, playing right around 7,000 yards and set up on acreage that’s usually reserved for just nine holes at a typical U.S. Open. The contained land forced the USGA to get creative with the placement of the practice range and routing, and they decided that No. 11 would be the best position to send players out on the back nine. The players will also need to allow for a half-hour shuttle ride between their final shot on the driving range and their first tee shot of the day.

Tee times on Thursday will run from 6:45 a.m. ET up to 2:57 p.m., with the USGA distributing the biggest names in the game evenly in both the morning and afternoon waves. It’s the afternoon wave, however, that could encounter trouble with inclement weather almost a certainty during the first round. The chance of rain is near 100 percent and there’s also potential for significant, damaging winds. The course has already taken on more than five inches of rain in the week leading up to the first round, so additional rain will result in mud balls -- globs of mud that stick to the ball and significantly affect where a player expects the shot to track. The USGA absolutely will not put “left, clean, and place” rules into effect -- they’d likely cancel the round before ever relenting to that form of play. So if the rain does come in as forecasted, the afternoon set of players could have more difficult conditions.

The headline group of the day will play in that afternoon wave, as Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Adam Scott are set to tee off No. 1 at 1:14 p.m. The USGA is known for getting creative with their pairings, seeking out a similar strain to put players together -- sometimes by surname, past drama, length off the tee, or even paunchy body type. The rationale for the Woods-Rory-Scott pairing is simple: they’re the top three players in the world. Tiger and Rory are the Nike duo who seemed on their way to developing a friendly rivalry last fall, but Rory’s struggles this season have yielded the No. 1 ranking and title of undisputed best player in the world back to Woods. Scott enters the week off his green jacket win at Augusta, where he broke the Aussie curse and his own personal mixed history at the majors. That win could propel him to several more over the next five decades, but whether it’s deserved or not, he’s the third wheel of this group.

The rain is supposed to move in overnight and get progressively worse as the afternoon approaches. That could force the USGA to suspend the round if conditions become unplayable with more rain dumping on the already saturated course. The forecast for the remaining three days looks pretty clear, so it’s likely they’ll get the tournament in by Sunday night even if part of Thursday is washed out.

With those weather caveats in mind, here is the complete tee sheet for Thursday’s opening round.

Morning wave off No. 1:

Morning wave of No. 11:

Afternoon wave off No. 1:

Afternoon wave off No. 11:

• Masters champ aims for back-to-back

• Helicopters couldn’t dry Merion

• A guide to the East Course at Merion Golf Club

• Rory likes ‘em slow

• Tee times for the first two rounds

• How’d they all get to Merion?

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