2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill: Tee times, pairings for Friday’s round

While most of the sports world watched one of the best opening days ever in the NCAA Tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational quietly teed off down in Florida. The annual stop at Bay Hill is one of the stronger early-season events that typically draws some of the bigger names for a Masters tuneup. But it’s impossible to compete with March Madness, especially with the way things were going on Thursday afternoon.

But if you want to ignore more work on Friday morning before the games come on, there will be golf and the No. 1 player in the world to watch. Rory McIlroy will be out in the morning draw on Friday with Jason Day and Rickie Fowler. That’s the marquee group on either side of the draw, and they’ll go together at 8:11 a.m. ET off No. 10. McIlroy fired a 2-under 70 in his first career round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It was a crisp tour through, hitting almost every fairway and getting on the greens in regulation. There were one or two leaky shots, but the round was a significant improvement from those two earlier starts on the Florida swing -- a missed cut at the Honda Classic and that shaky outing at Doral that had him chucking his club in the lake.

While McIlroy’s group should be done before TV coverage goes live on Golf Channel at 2 p.m., you will be able to watch their round via a PGATour.com “featured groups” stream. That stream will focus only on McIlroy, Day, and Fowler throughout the morning and is a fine breakfast lead-in to the hoops at Noon.

The big names in the afternoon wave include Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson, Billy Horschel, and Brandt Snedeker. The headliner for Friday afternoon was supposed to be Bubba Watson, scheduled to play with Scott and Brooks Koepka. But Bubba withdrew late Wednesday afternoon after the death of a friend, later revealed to be former Georgia teammate David Miller. The funeral service was going to conflict with the tournament, and Bubba wanted to be there so he withdrew for the second straight year at Bay Hill. Scott and Koepka are now paired with Kevin Kisner, the alternate who got Bubba’s spot and promptly shot a 3-under 69 to get inside the top 20 after the first round.

The 18-hole leader is Morgan Hoffmann, who is also dealing with tragedy this week. Hoffmann learned of the death of his grandmother on Thursday morning just a few hours before he went out and set the pace with a 6-under 66. He’s one shot clear of five others, and will play in the first group of the day at 7:35 a.m. ET. Here’s the full tee sheet for Friday’s second round: