TOUR Championship 2014: Tee times, pairings and a preview of Saturday’s third round

There are just 36 more holes left in the PGA Tour season, and a loaded leaderboard has emerged at the TOUR Championship. Billy Horschel’s run through the postseason has continued in Atlanta, where he starts Saturday’s round with a two-shot lead over Rory McIlroy. Here’s your guide to the third round tee sheet.

With only 29 players in the this field, there was obviously not going to be a cut made at the midpoint. It’s the smallest field of the season and that gives the Tour a ton of flexibility to move those 15 tee times around to avoid inclement weather and accommodate a TV broadcast. Friday’s round was moved up three hours due to the threat of afternoon storms. it’s not uncommon to see the Tour shift tee times up when the field is small enough, and we saw that happen multiple times at this event last year.

But the full field got through play unscathed and without delay, playing the round in under four hours. Part of the reason for bumping tee times up on Friday is that the weather also looked shaky for the weekend. So the Tour wanted to be extra-cautious to try and avoid any back-up on the weekend that could have opened the door for a Monday finish, which would be a scheduling disaster for the season finale.

Saturday’s round, however, is right back on schedule and will be played entirely in the afternoon. The first tee time isn’t until 12:15 p.m. ET, and the last group will go off at 2:30 p.m. With such a small field, there’s very little traffic on the course and playing in twosomes, these guys have been getting through their rounds in 3.5 hours each day. So expect the normal 6 p.m. finish unless there are some storm delays.

The leaders always get the attention, and rightly so. But going a little deeper down the leaderboard, I’m going to keep an eye on the Bubba Watson-Jordan Spieth duo at 1:20 p.m. Both players will be key to American Ryder Cup success, but neither has played all that great over the second half of the summer. Spieth hasn’t really contended in anything since The Players in May, while Bubba hadn’t done much since the Memorial ... until last week. Watson was in it on the back nine at the BMW, pushing Horschel a little bit while Spieth posted a top 10 result with three rounds of 68 or better. This is a replay of the final pairing at this year’s Masters, and while there have been some bumps since April, both guys will need to come through at Gleneagles in two weeks.

Sticking with the Ryder Cup theme, USA captain Tom Watson might be a little unnerved with what he’s seeing from his captain’s picks this week. Keegan Bradley withdrew from the BMW Championship last week and that eliminated his chance of making the top 30 and getting to Atlanta. Webb Simpson and Hunter Mahan, meanwhile, have bombed at East Lake and are 14 shots off the lead at 6-over. Only two players in the field have worse scores than Mahan and Simpson.

Since he won the Barclays, and essentially locked up his captain’s pick spot, Mahan has posted 64th and T59 results in the FedEx Cup. Now he’s probably going to finish near the bottom of the leaderboard again this week -- not exactly capitalizing on that win and keeping up the momentum for the Ryder Cup.

Watson’s agita may be compounded by the fact that Billy Horschel, who will be sitting on his couch for the Ryder Cup, is the hottest player in the world right now. Horschel didn’t have a real compelling argument to make the team when the picks were announced after Labor Day. But after his last two events (a near-miss at the Deutsche Bank and a win at the BMW) and now his flawless start to get out on 36-hole lead, Horschel would undoubtedly get the nod from Watson over Simpson and Mahan if the picks were made today.

Here’s hoping that Mahan and Simpson can find some form playing together on Saturday in the 12:30 p.m. tee time.

One of the more interesting side games this week is monitoring how fast that solo tee time is playing -- all thanks to the indisposed Dustin Johnson, who somehow stayed in the top 30 in the standings without playing a playoff event and thus made this an odd-numbered field. Gary Woodland, who was the last man in the field at No. 29 in the FedEx Cup standings, played by himself on Thursday in 2 hours and 50 minutes. That’s not too bad.

Geoff Ogilvy had the distinction or ignominy of playing solo on Friday, and he made the turn in about 75 minutes before finishing his round at 2:33. That’s pretty good. He’ll have another shot again on Saturday, and probably Sunday too given that he’s already in last by SEVEN shots.

Let’s mail this in and try to really accomplish something over the weekend, Geoff. Can you beat the absurd 1:52 mark set by Rory Sabbatini earlier this year in the final round at Congressional?

This is shaping up to be a pretty solid finish to the season. The Tour has the No. 1 player in the world and the game’s biggest star since Tiger in the mix to win his first FedEx Cup. Playing opposite him will be a feisty American who is on the hottest streak of his PGA Tour career. Rory McIlroy and Billy Horschel will obviously draw the largest galleries at East Lake and it will be fun to watch to see if Horschel can hold off the power and talent of the game’s most dominant player.

These two are not unfamiliar with each other. Both played in the Walker Cup, the amateur version of the Ryder Cup, and some of Horschel’s emotional outbursts and celebrations definitely upset McIlroy. Rory would tell Golf Digest later that “His antics really pissed me off. He was so loud and so obnoxious.” The two have played together since that amateur competition and there’s no real animosity anymore. In fact, they’re supposedly quite friendly. But one can hope for a little tension and drama in the final pairing as they go for the biggest cash prize in golf.

Here’s the full tee sheet for Saturday’s third round at East Lake: