How to watch Tiger Woods’ Hero World Challenge online, TV schedule and more

Thursday brought some much needed relief from what had been an exceedingly boring stretch of golf, even for the typically dead fall schedule. Tiger Woods made his return to competitive golf after almost four months rehabbing, armed with a new motion and a new coach. And he promptly tumbled into last place, a good four shots worse than anyone else in this 18-man party he hosts each year.

Tiger’s return, and the loaded field around him, were enough to tune in to this early December silly season event. But Woods’ repeated struggles around the green, including four ghastly chunked chip shots that you might see once a month from Tiger, made it especially fascinating. With that first round as the backdrop, Friday’s 18-hole march at Isleworth becomes another appointment for golf fans.

Tiger, however, will play a majority of his round outside Golf Channel’s coverage window, thanks to his position at the bottom of the leaderboard. Due to the small field, the event re-organizes players by score right after the first round -- there’s obviously no cut. So Woods is off first with Patrick Reed, teeing it up at 11:20 a.m. ET. Golf Channel’s coverage is set to begin at 2 p.m., which means Tiger should be pretty deep on the back nine by the time they go live -- maybe five holes left in his second round. But there’s nothing else going on in golf in early December, so I anticipate that Golf Channel will show many of his shots in the multiple hours of pregame coverage leading up to that 2 p.m. start.

The draw of Tiger aside, this is probably the best collection of talent since the Ryder Cup at the end of September. There are 10 of the top 15 in the world rankings in attendance, and Jordan Spieth, fresh off a win in Australia, rocketed to the early lead. He’ll likely get most of the love from the cameras late in the broadcast, which should end just before 5 p.m. If you’re unable to get in front of a TV and want to ignore work on a Friday, Golf Channel simulcast streams all of their coverage via GC/NBC’s LiveExtra service. Here are all your media options for the second round at Isleworth:

2 to 5 p.m. -- Golf Channel simulcast stream