Scottish Open 2014: Tee times, TV schedule and online streaming for Thursday’s first round

While the Open Championship is still a week away, we’ll get a preview of what’s to come at Royal Liverpool at this week’s Scottish Open. This annual stop preceding the season’s third major has become one of the highlights of the Euro Tour season, at least for myopic American audiences. Many of the big names, both American and European, travel across the Atlantic for a week of competitive prep on a links-style course.

This year’s Scottish Open will be held at Royal Aberdeen, a true links course that’s upheld the recent trend of drawing the biggest names. Loch Lomond, which hosted this event for over a decade before a switch to Castle Stuart in 2011, was not your typical Scottish links venue so it didn’t always attract the top players looking to prep under those conditions. But Castle Stuart, and now Aberdeen, provide that test and many are following in the footsteps of Phil Mickelson, who rolled to a Scottish Open win last year a week before capturing his fifth major championship at Muirfield.

Mickelson is back again this year, messing around in the unique conditions and hitting flop shots backwards over his head. We’re accustomed to seeing Phil the week before a major, and we know he doesn’t use these events to experiment or work things out for the bigger tournament the following week. He’s gunning to win these and often works his way to the first page of the leaderboard quickly. He’ll play alongside Luke Donald and Joost Luiten, two potential Euro team Ryder Cup members, and go out early in the morning wave on Thursday. They’re set to tee off at 8:20 a.m. local time, or 3:20 a.m. ET back in the states.

In addition to Mickelson, stars like Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Ian Poulter, Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, and Justin Rose will all be playing this week. It’s a strong group from both the PGA and Euro tours, and Golf Channel will cover all four days. On Thursday, they’ll come on the air at 5:30 a.m. ET and run coverage until 1:30 p.m. ET. With all the daylight hours you get in Scotland this time of year, the Euro Tour can send groups of three off just one tee, rolling throughout the day as opposed to the split tee cramming we sometimes get during limited daylight hours. If you’re unable to watch on TV during the morning back in the USA, Golf Channel will have a simulcast stream up and running via their LiveExtra service. Here are your media options for the opening round at Royal Aberdeen:

5:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET -- Golf Channel

And here’s the full tee sheet for the first round -- all times are ET: