Scheduled between the U.S. Open and the Open Championship and with its status as one of the few invitational tournaments on the PGA Tour, the Quicken Loans National typically draws a very solid field. That is the case again this year, but most of the attention will be on one of the 120 players teeing it up. Tiger Woods will make his return from back surgery on Thursday, playing in his first competitive event since the WGC-Cadillac Championship in early March.
2014 Quicken Loans National: Tee times, pairings for Thursday’s round
For the first time since early March, Tiger Woods will tee it up in a PGA Tour event. Woods will make his return early on Thursday, playing in the morning wave.
Rob Carr
Woods only began hitting full golf shots recently, but is recovered enough to play and pushed up the timeline of his return to this week since he hosts the Quicken Loans National and it benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation.
“If this wasn’t the foundation and our impact on what we can have with kids, I probably would not [return this week],” Woods said earlier in the week. “Our goal was the British Open and I healed extremely fast.”
Regardless of why he’s playing, he is playing and the attention will shift to his performance on the course. Woods is likely to be very rusty, having not played much golf. He’s talked about working on his grip and missed several shots to the right during the pro-am event on Wednesday. Woods made some minor tweaks to his swing during the rehabilitation process in an effort to avoid doing any more damage to his surgically repaired spine. While he initially lost some power and distance, he said his numbers are getting close to normal.
Viewers won’t have to wait long to see how Woods fares in his first round back as he’s scheduled to tee off at 8:12 a.m. ET. He’ll play with Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, forming the marquee pairing of the first two rounds. While the results of Woods’ return will come in early, viewers won’t be able to see the 79-time PGA Tour winner play live, unless they are on the grounds at Congressional. Television coverage will be expanded from the usual three-hour broadcast, but it still won’t begin until 2:30 p.m. With Woods scheduled to tee off a little after 8 a.m., he will be done with his first round by the time television coverage begins.
While Woods’ round will likely be featured prominently during the broadcast and be a popular topic of conversation, there will be a few notable groups playing in the afternoon during the broadcast window. Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley and Ernie Els will form one of the most notable pairings and the three are set to tee off at 1:12 p.m. They’ll go out just a group after Jason Dufner, Bill Haas and K.J. Choi tee off. Haas is the defending tournament champion.
Golf Channel’s coverage will run from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday with a live simulcast available online from Golf LiveExtra. There will not be a featured holes stream this week so viewers will have to wait until Friday to see Woods play live.
Here is a complete look at the coverage for Thursday, including the first-round tee sheet. All times Eastern.
First round coverage
Television:
2:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel
Online streams:
2:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel simulcast stream
Radio:
1 to 7 p.m. -- PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 93/208)
Tee times:
First hole | Tee time | Players | ||
No. 1 | 7:00 a.m. | John Rollins | Ben Martin | Justin Hicks |
No. 1 | 7:12 a.m. | Arjun Atwal | Ricky Barnes | Daniel Summerhays |
No. 1 | 7:24 a.m. | Brendon de Jonge | Kevin Chappell | Andrew Svoboda |
No. 1 | 7:36 a.m. | Nick Watney | Kyle Stanley | Mark Wilson |
No. 1 | 7:48 a.m. | George McNeill | Jhonattan Vegas | Mike Weir |
No. 1 | 8:00 a.m. | J.B. Holmes | Seung-Yul Noh | Chesson Hadley |
No. 1 | 8:12 a.m. | Steven Bowditch | Patrick Reed | Gary Woodland |
No. 1 | 8:24 a.m. | Derek Ernst | Jonathan Byrd | Vijay Singh |
No. 1 | 8:36 a.m. | Ryan Palmer | Brian Harman | Chad Collins |
No. 1 | 8:48 a.m. | Billy Hurley III | Jim Renner | Patrick Cantlay |
No. 10 | 7:00 a.m. | Brian Davis | Hudson Swafford | Peter Hanson |
No. 10 | 7:12 a.m. | Roberto Castro | James Hahn | Cameron Tringale |
No. 10 | 7:24 a.m. | Robert Garrigus | Tim Wilkinson | Danny Lee |
No. 10 | 7:36 a.m. | Stuart Appleby | Davis Love III | Robert Allenby |
No. 10 | 7:48 a.m. | John Merrick | Carl Pettersson | John Huh |
No. 10 | 8:00 a.m. | Brendon Todd | Webb Simpson | Brandt Snedeker |
No. 10 | 8:12 a.m. | Jason Day | Tiger Woods | Jordan Spieth |
No. 10 | 8:24 a.m. | Ted Potter, Jr. | Johnson Wagner | Harrison Frazar |
No. 10 | 8:36 a.m. | Andres Romero | Erik Compton | D.H. Lee |
No. 10 | 8:48 a.m. | Charlie Wi | Greg Chalmers | Andrew Loupe |
No. 1 | 12:00 p.m. | Camilo Villegas | Nicholas Thompson | Morgan Hoffmann |
No. 1 | 12:12 p.m. | Sean O'Hair | Spencer Levin | Josh Teater |
No. 1 | 12:24 p.m. | Jason Bohn | Trevor Immelman | Troy Merritt |
No. 1 | 12:36 p.m. | Scott Stallings | Charlie Beljan | Y.E. Yang |
No. 1 | 12:48 p.m. | Geoff Ogilvy | Angel Cabrera | Retief Goosen |
No. 1 | 1:00 p.m. | Jason Dufner | Bill Haas | K.J. Choi |
No. 1 | 1:12 p.m. | Justin Rose | Keegan Bradley | Ernie Els |
No. 1 | 1:24 p.m. | Scott Brown | Rory Sabbatini | Charley Hoffman |
No. 1 | 1:36 p.m. | Bryce Molder | Heath Slocum | Michael Putnam |
No. 1 | 1:48 p.m. | Tyrone Van Aswegen | Bud Cauley | Brady Watt |
No. 10 | 12:00 p.m. | James Driscoll | Martin Flores | Shawn Stefani |
No. 10 | 12:12 p.m. | Russell Knox | Robert Streb | Kevin Kisner |
No. 10 | 12:24 p.m. | Freddie Jacobson | Brendan Steele | David Lingmerth |
No. 10 | 12:36 p.m. | Sang-Moon Bae | J.J. Henry | Stewart Cink |
No. 10 | 12:48 p.m. | Woody Austin | Martin Laird | Ben Curtis |
No. 10 | 1:00 p.m. | Matt Every | Hunter Mahan | Charles Howell III |
No. 10 | 1:12 p.m. | Russell Henley | Billy Horschel | Marc Leishman |
No. 10 | 1:24 p.m. | Aaron Baddeley | Pat Perez | Brice Garnett |
No. 10 | 1:36 p.m. | Bo Van Pelt | Will MacKenzie | Richard H. Lee |
No. 10 | 1:48 p.m. | Wes Roach | Patrick Rodgers | Oliver Goss |
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