2015 Honda Classic: Tee times, TV schedule and how to watch Monday’s finish online

It didn’t take long for weather to significantly impact the Florida swing. Biblical rains and high winds crushed the Honda Classic on both Friday and Saturday, removing the chance for a Sunday finish early in the weekend. The early-season schedule has been hit by absurd winds, heavy fogs, floods, blizzards, and thunderstorms in recent years, but the West Coast swing was relatively smooth through the first two months of the year. Now that things have jumped across to Florida for the month of March, however, expect more and more storm delays.

The pace moved much quicker on Sunday, which was the first full stretch of play since the cut was made mid-morning Saturday before the deluge. The PGA Tour opted not to re-pair the players according to score, the way tee times operate at a normal tournament from one round to the next. Instead, as each group came into the clubhouse at the end of the third round, they were given a short breather and then sent right back out together again regardless of where they stood on the leaderboard. No one has finished the fourth round, with the first groups through 16 holes.

The final group of Patrick Reed, Padraig Harrington, and Ian Poulter did not even start their third round until about 11 a.m. on Sunday. They finished those 18 holes, went right back out, and got through the first seven of the fourth and final round. Poulter played most of Sunday with a two or three-shot lead but that blew up quickly when he hideously shanked a basic 8-iron shot off the course and into a water hazard.

That eventual double-bogey, combined with Reed’s birdie on the same hole, extinguished the lead and another water ball on the next hole would wipe out his co-lead. Poulter got it back before the horn blew at 6:18 p.m. ET with darkness making PGA National unplayable, pouring in a birdie on his final hole of the day to pull even with Paul Casey at 7-under.

The PGA Tour will put the remaining 71 players in place for a final round restart at 8 a.m. ET. For the third straight day, they will put “preferred lies” -- otherwise known as lift, clean, and place -- in play. They’ve played that way all weekend because of all the water the course took on in consecutive days. An 8 a.m. restart should put us at about a 10:15 to 10:30 a.m. finish (given no pop-up storms Monday morning).

It’s the first unscheduled Monday finish of the year (the Hyundai Tournament of Champions runs Friday to Monday), but given the way things looked on Saturday when scoreboards were blown into lakes and tents shredded across submerged fairways, it could have been much worse. The schedule also brings a bit of relief, as the players at the top of the world rankings are headed just down the road to Miami for the WGC at Doral while the rest make the quick jump over to Puerto Rico later this week.

So while a Monday finish is never ideal, this is not the scheduling disaster it could have been. The biggest loser is probably the network partners, who blow the Sunday audience for the conclusion and get bumped to cable early during the work day. Golf Channel, NBC’s sister network, will carry the conclusion Monday morning starting at 8 a.m. ET. Because GC and NBC are both Comcast networks, Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks, who call the Florida swing, should still be in the tower for the finish.

As usual, you can watch a simulcast of everything on Golf Channel and NBC via their LiveExtra service, so if you’re stuck at work and want to ease into the week by ignoring it, that’s always an option. Here are all your media options for the morning:

8 a.m. to conclusion (~10:30 a.m. ET) -- Golf Channel

8 a.m. to conclusion -- Golf Channel/NBC Sports LiveExtra simulcast stream

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And here’s the leaderboard and how far into the final round each player is heading into Monday’s 8 a.m. resumption: