2014 TOUR Championship: Tee times, pairings for Friday’s round at East Lake

The TOUR Championship rolls on at East Lake Golf Club on Friday, where the co-leaders are the top two players in the FedEx Cup standings. The 29-man field is the smallest and most exclusive of the season, giving the Tour a ton of flexibility to schedule out tee times. And they’re going to switch things up and alter the original schedule for Friday.

Due to the likelihood of afternoon storms rolling in to the Atlanta area, the PGA Tour pushed tee times up about three hours for the second round. The first tee time was scheduled to go out just before Noon ET, but now Geoff Ogilvy will lead things off at 8:45 a.m. ET.

This is not uncommon for this event. The size of the field makes it pretty easy to shift things around to try and dodge weather. That happens with some frequency each season on the PGA Tour, but with only 15 pairings on the tee sheet, there’s an inclination to always take extra precaution here and utilize the advantage of having such a small field. We saw the schedule moved around on multiple days last year, and now we’re already bumping things up in this season’s finale. With the final pairing not out until 11 a.m. ET, expect a finish sometime between 2:30 and 3 p.m. at East Lake. Even though there’s a ton of money on the line, these guys are playing sub-four-hour rounds in twosomes with little traffic out on the course.

It’s hard to say there are any terrible pairings when you have just 15 to choose from and they’re made up of the best postseason players this year. But that Rickie Fowler-Adam Scott duo at 9:50 a.m. ET should be a tasty ball-striking display. Even though they’re in the middle of the tee sheet, both guys are just three shots off the pace at 1-under and given their seasons, they’re both capable of quickly posting a low number to leapfrog everyone ahead of them. Aside from Rory McIlroy, these may have been the two most consistent players of the season. The Furyk-Bubba pairing will be a good one 50 minutes later, but this is the most powerful duo for Friday.

All eyes were on Gary Woodland on Thursday, but not necessarily for his golf. As the last man in the field at No. 29 in the standings, Woodland was the first man out playing as a solo. That’s because Dustin Johnson, who hasn’t played in a month and didn’t tee it up in a single FedEx Cup event, still remained in the top 30 after the first three legs of the playoffs based on the points he’d accrued earlier in the season. His spot went unclaimed so we ended up with the odd-numbered field.

Woodland didn’t play with a “marker” -- a non-competing amateur who joins the competing pro to maintain the normal pace. This is mandated at Augusta, where member Jeff Knox always gets the call and notably beat Rory McIlroy earlier this year. So everyone kept monitoring Woodland’s round to see how quickly he could get in the house.

The final numbers: Woodland made the turn around 90 minutes in and completed his round at 2:50. That’s a nice sub-three-hour round, but it’s nothing compared to the ridiculous 1:52 mark Rory Sabbatini posted in the final round of the Quicken Loans National at Congressional in June. Granted, that was on a Sunday and Sabbatini was in last and just wanted to get the hell out of there while Woodland was just starting the week where an absurd amount of bonus money is available to every finishing spot.

Now we turn our attention to Ogilvy, who is in last place by a good three shots and a full 11 shots behind the leaders. We’re expecting big things, Geoff. Let’s give Sabbo a run and try to finish up around 11 a.m. ET.

This is an event where the players are re-grouped after just the first round. The pairings for the first day are determined by FedEx Cup ranking, then they’re organized by score every round after that (as they would be on the weekend for a normal tournament). But Chris Kirk and Billy Horschel were the only two players out of the 29-man field to go without a bogey on Thursday, and their matching 4-under 66s put them in a share of the lead. It was a rare chalky result and thus they’ll anchor the tee sheet yet again on Friday.

With tee times now up three hours earlier than scheduled, the TV coverage will begin three hours ahead of it’s original air time. Golf Channel will come on the air at 10 a.m. ET as opposed to 1 p.m. and carry coverage until the conclusion of the second round.

Here’s the updated tee sheet for Friday’s second round at East Lake: