2014 WGC Bridgestone Invitational: Tee times, pairings for Friday’s round

The WGC-Bridgestone Invitational is an entertaining event for several reasons, one of which is the pace of play and the way golfers race around Firestone’s South Course. A major reason for golf’s decline in popularity is the interminable time commitment it takes both to play and to watch.

But the limited no-cut WGC events have an exclusive and smaller field, allowing the PGA to send the players off split tees in groups of two. The result is a consistent pace of play that delivers rounds usually under four hours. Tiger Woods played his round on Thursday afternoon, late in the day when there would be a back-up if pace was an issue, right around a brisk three hours and 40 minutes. It makes the round much more watchable on TV, and the loaded field of the world’s best players prefer it as well. Next week, we’ll be back to a jam-packed tee sheet of 156 players, grouped in threesomes off two tees for sun-up to sun-down golf and five-hour rounds at the PGA Championship.

Woods will flip to the morning wave on Friday, but won’t be out until later at 10:30 a.m. ET. His playing partner, Martin Kaymer, is not known for being especially quick but the German is so far down the leaderboard that maybe he’ll want to get his round over and done with. Tiger is generally on the faster side, so once again, their round should come in right around four hours or less. That puts their last 5 holes or so during the coverage window on Golf Channel, which starts at 1:30 p.m.

A WGC event features a marquee player at almost every tee time. It’s really hard to pick out the few clusters that you know everyone will be following. Those top groups are often easy to spot during a regular week on Tour, but a WGC is filled top-to-bottom with world-class talent. In the afternoon, however, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson will undoubtedly take up much of the camera time. They play in the last two tee times of the day, Mickelson with Sergio Garcia, and Rory with Matt Kuchar. So while Tiger may be done during most of the TV coverage, there are still some huge draws playing late in the day.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the second round at Firestone: