How to watch the Deutsche Bank Championship live online, TV schedule, radio and more

The FedEx Cup swings from New York up to Massachusetts this week for the traditional second postseason leg at TPC Boston. The Deutsche Bank Championship is the only tournament on the PGA Tour schedule with a pre-planned Monday finish. With college football taking over the weekend, the DBC utilizes the holiday for a Friday start and Labor Day finish. The Tour occasionally wraps up tournaments on Mondays, but never by design and usually due to persistent weather delays. Even the stop at Colonial, played over Memorial Day weekend, concludes early Sunday evening in Fort Worth.

So the unorthodox schedule also creates a slightly different media schedule for the week. With the NFL fast approaching, CBS has transitioned completely to football coverage. The Barclays last week was its final golf broadcast of the year. CBS covers more Tour events than any other network, and has the rights to two majors, so it would probably be considered the flagship station of the PGA Tour. But NBC is not far behind and has the rights to several big events, most notably the annual Florida swing in the spring, The Players Championship and the last three legs of the FedEx Cup in the fall. NBC, of course, has the rights to the Ryder Cup and had the rights to the U.S. Open, but those aren’t official PGA Tour events. So the network is a huge player when it comes to golf coverage throughout the year.

The benefit of switching to NBC for network broadcasting is that there is now an additional layer of cooperation with Golf Channel, resulting in more comprehensive coverage. The two are sister networks under the Comcast umbrella, so there’s a pretty seamless transition switching across networks. In contrast, the change over from Golf Channel to CBS on the weekends requires a half-hour blackout period to switch in graphics and announcers. This always seems to happen just as the leaders and final groups play the first four or five holes of the final round. With NBC, we go straight from Golf Channel to Dan Hicks, Johnny Miller and company.

The second, bigger benefit to NBC taking over the final three legs of the FedEx Cup is the return of “spotlight coverage.” This is a concurrent broadcast on Golf Channel, complimentary to the normal NBC coverage once that goes live on Sunday and Monday. Spotlight coverage will focus on the finishing stretch at TPC Boston, with separate broadcasters posted up over the final three holes. The screen is also peppered with data, from tracer technology to TrackMan info and ongoing stats for that week’s tournament and cumulatively over the season.

The spotlight broadcast was called “probably the future of televised golf” by Geoff Shackelford back in March when NBC/GC put it in play at the Honda Classic. It’s aimed at a smaller, targeted audience, but it’s a cool compliment and different way to watch.

In addition to all the TV coverage, there will also be ample opportunities to watch online for those who would like to spend Labor Day weekend in front of a computer. The Golf Channel/NBC LiveExtra service will simulcast stream every hour of TV coverage, and PGATour.com will have a featured groups stream up and running by 8 a.m. every day.

College football this weekend, and following soon, the NFL, will command almost all our attention. But the FedEx Cup is as good an attempt as possible to keep golf relevant past the season’s final major. Most of the big names, including Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson, will be in attendance in Boston. For those who really, really care about golf, it’s a nice bridge to the Ryder Cup at the end of September. Here’s your viewing guide for the weekend at the DBC:

2:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel

2:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel simulcast stream

1 to 7 p.m. -- PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 93/208)

3 to 6 p.m. -- Golf Channel simulcast stream

1 to 3 p.m. -- Golf Channel

3 to 6 p.m. -- NBC

3 to 5 p.m. -- Golf Channel “spotlight coverage” of TPC Boston finishing holes (Nos. 16-18)

1 to 6 p.m. -- Golf Channel/NBC Sports LiveExtra simulcast stream

1 to 7 p.m. -- PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 93/208)

11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel

1:30 to 6:30 p.m. -- NBC

1:30 to 5 p.m. -- Golf Channel “spotlight coverage” of TPC Boston finishing holes (Nos. 16-18)

11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel/NBC Sports LiveExtra simulcast stream