2014 RBC Heritage: Tee times, pairings for Friday’s round

The RBC Heritage has about as good a field any event can have with a spot on the schedule the week right after a major. Part of that has to do with the impressive stable of players the title sponsor backs, and a bigger part of it has to do with the venue.

Harbour Town is one of the classic, old style courses that annually ranks among the favorites when tour players are polled. It’s not a monotonous TPC course that we get so often, but a shorter and challenging Pete Dye original that rewards shotmaking with plenty of opportunities for birdies. The Hilton Head spot was without a title sponsor and in danger of losing its place on the schedule, but RBC came in a couple years ago to rescue one of the great annual stops on Tour.

First round co-leader Matt Kuchar, who continues his month-long run near the top of leaderboards, will be out in the morning wave on Friday. Kuchar is part of one of the marquee groups in the morning draw, playing alongside Ernie Els and Hunter Mahan. One group behind them, 10 minutes later, is Graeme McDowell, Bill Haas, and Brandt Snedeker. Out of that cluster, only Haas is not a part of that impressive group of players signed up by RBC, and they’ll be the headliners in the morning.

In the afternoon during the TV window, all cameras should be on last week’s runner-up, Jordan Spieth. The 20-year-old is paired up with 50-year old Davis Love III and 64-year old Tom Watson, who will almost certainly be his Ryder Cup captain. The notion that Watson is really using these first two days of the tournament to “scout” Spieth for the team is pretty ludicrous. Unless his game falls off a cliff or he’s injured, Spieth is going to make it. And two days during a tournament in mid-April should carry little weight anyways, but people need things to talk about. They will be off the first tee at 12:40 p.m. ET, so their final nine holes or so should be shown when Golf Channel goes live at 3 p.m.

Here’s the full tee sheet for Friday at Harbour Town.