Hyundai Tournament of Champions 2015: Tee times, pairings for Friday’s round at Kapalua

The first official PGA Tour round of 2015 tees off Friday afternoon in what is annually the most stunningly beautiful course on the rota. The Hyundai Tournament of Champions returns to Kapalua, an extreme venue on the side of a Maui mountain. While the rest of the United States freezes, this stop dug itself into the schedule as the historic season opener and it has come seem appropriate and right to start the year here.

The format and schedule have changed over the years, moving to a planned Monday finish and cutting down to a limted-field event. There are just 34 players in the field this year, as the ToC maintains the requirement that only winners from the previous season’s official tournaments qualify. There are four qualifiers who opted not to make the trip to Maui, and they are some of the biggest names in the game. Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, and Martin Kaymer will not play Kapalua this year.

Even though this is one of the most beautiful and relaxing stops on the PGA Tour schedule, and most players make a family vacation out of it if invited, the richest and biggest names have passed on making a lengthy trip to the middle of the Pacific. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson cut it out of their schedule, and the four internationals this year were not going to fly around the world to Maui, especially with other lucrative opportunities on the Euro Tour’s swing through the Middle East. So that’s how you end up with a Tournament of Champions that’s missing the winner of three of the four majors from last year.

The one major winner from last season who is here, however, is a pretty big draw on his own. Bubba Watson has patronized this event regularly in recent years, and it’s always fun to watch one of the biggest bombers in the word rip shots down some of these steep grades. In 2012, Bubba may have hit the shot of the year just two days into the season, crushing a driver off the deck and cutting it 75 yards down the slope at the picturesque 18th. The shot trickled onto the green and Bubba got home in two on the 663-yard hole.

This year, the defending Masters and Northern Trust Open champ will start in the penultimate group, playing alongside Chris Kirk. Anchoring the tee sheet will be the defending champ in this event, Zach Johnson, and the defending FedEx Cup winner, Billy Horschel. Jason Day, Patrick Reed, Matt Kuchar, and Hunter Mahan are some of the other headliners at an event that’s often sold just by the venue and anticipation of the start of a new season.

The five-hour time difference between Maui and the eastern United States obviously allows for primetime golf all weekend. The limited field also allows the Tour a lot of flexibility to hold the players, and Friday should be the latest start of the week. The first group won’t go off until 3:10 p.m. ET, or 10:10 a.m. local in Maui. In a full field event, the first tee time is always before 8 a.m., and sometimes before 7 a.m. local.

Golf Channel will have the broadcast on Friday, coming on the air at 4:30 p.m. and aiming for a finish around 10 p.m. Here’s the full tee sheet for Friday’s first round: