Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship 2015: Tee times, TV schedule and online streaming for Thursday

The big boss of golf will start his 2015 campaign as he does each year, with a Euro Tour stop at Abu Dhabi. No, it’s not Tiger Woods and his usual (appearance fee aided) patronage of one of the major Middle East stops, but rather world No. 1 Rory McIlroy. Tiger’s fees are drying up a bit, and given the long layoff and rehab, he’s sticking to the PGA Tour for this year, passing on Abu Dhabi and Dubai this month in favor of the Phoenix Open.

But Rory is here, and he’s now the show in golf. This is where he starts his season, typically spending a week to 10 days practicing in Dubai before teeing it up in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. McIlroy’s first career win came in the desert swing, the 2009 Dubai Desert Classic, and he’s continued to make it an important part of his schedule. Last year at this event, he was dinged two strokes for not taking full relief from a gallery pathway through the desert sand. The drop he took gave him no advantage, and he’d later call it a “stupid rule.” Nevertheless, the two shots ended up being the difference between a season-opening win and losing by a stroke.

Last year, we didn’t really know what to expect from Rory at the top of the season. He ended an abominable 2013 with a solid showing in Australia, but there was still plenty of scar tissue from the prior year. This year, however, there are no doubts or questions. He’s fully comfortable with his Nike equipment and his off-the-course life seems relatively settled (save for that lawsuit against his former agents, which he said is not top of mind). Expect McIlroy to roll over the momentum from 2014, where he shot to No. 1 in the world, dominated all the biggest events of the second half of the season, and overtook Tiger as the unquestioned top talent in the game.

This field is better at the top than the PGA Tour’s stop on Oahu this week, with players like Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, and Ernie Els joining McIlroy. The Euro Tour isn’t going to waste an opportunity with Rory in the field, and they put him with Fowler and Matteo Manassero, the former Italian teenage phenom who needs a bounce-back year. Fowler is being framed in the unfortunate position of being Rory’s rival and primary contemporary for the next couple decades. He’s a super talent, but that’s a pretty tough spot to be in, given Rory’s track record already and the fact that he’s probably just getting started.

Fowler, of course, joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to finish top five in all four majors in a season with his work last year. He’s clearly a different player and comfortable with his motion under the guidance of Butch Harmon. The critiques that he’s just a marketable face with not a lot of actual golf success to back it up are dissipating. But McIlroy is the standard. Rickie can push him, but I suspect it won’t end well more often than not.

This is a nice early test, but it’s not likely an event from which we can extrapolate much for these two, either individually or head-to-head, for the rest of this season. They’ll get it started at 7:40 a.m. local time in Abu Dhabi, or 10:40 p.m. ET on Wednesday night in the States.

Here’s the full sheet for the first round -- all times are ET starting Wednesday night and rolling into Thursday morning in the States:

Golf Channel will have coverage all four days this week, and with Rory and Rickie out in the early wave for the first round, they’ll expand the broadcast to come on the air early Thursday. The first half of the broadcast will run from 12:30 to 3:30 a.m. ET, which should cover at least the entire back nine of that marquee group’s opening round. As usual, Golf Channel will also offer a simulcast stream of their coverage online.

12:30 to 3:30 a.m. -- Golf Channel

5 to 8 a.m. -- Golf Channel

Noon to 5:30 p.m. (Replay) -- Golf Channel