2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational streaming: How to watch online, TV coverage and more

The Arnold Palmer Invitational is really the last big PGA Tour event before the Masters. Tiger Woods always made it so, but he’s not in attendance for the second straight year so the event is struggling up against the behemoth of March Madness.

One boost at Bay Hill, however, was Rory McIlroy showing up for the first time in his career. McIlroy posted his best round of the PGA Tour season on Friday, a 6-under 66, and is right back in contention at the start of the weekend. The Ulsterman is clearly the best player in the game right now, but that cruise through two stops on the Euro Tour at the start of the year hit a bit of a bump when he came over to the Florida swing. A missed cut at the Honda Classic and mediocre stay at Doral made this week’s API important to regaining that world No. 1 form in what is probably his final start before the Masters. The 66 was just that, and now he’s tied for sixth and well within striking distance over the final 36 holes.

McIlroy will be out in the final cluster of tee times on Saturday, going at 1:25 p.m. ET. His entire round will fall within the coverage window so unless he completely goes off the rails, expect to see his every shot Saturday afternoon. Golf Channel and NBC will split the coverage all weekend. With the U.S. Open moving to FOX this year, the Florida swing is one of the bigger stretches on the NBC golf schedule. Bay Hill has always been a highlight of that stretch, but the absence of Tiger is obviously a huge blow for TV matters.

With Golf Channel and NBC both falling under the Comcast umbrella, there’s always plenty of cooperation when they split the weekend. If it’s a big enough tournament, GC even puts their “Spotlight Coverage” into play and that will be fired up again on Saturday at Bay Hill. It’s a concurrent broadcast running opposite the normal coverage on NBC. A separate announce crew focuses on just three or four holes while the screen is peppered with ProTracer on each shot, TrackMan info, graphics and stats for the hole, tournament, and season.

It’s been called the “future of televised golf” in the past year, and this is one final opportunity to watch until NBC/GC likely use it at The Players.

In addition to all the TV coverage, there will be multiple streams throughout the day. PGATour.com will feature the 9:10 a.m. tee time of Rickie Fowler and Zach Johnson on their stream, and then switch to a featured holes stream when that group finishes and the TV coverage has gone live. As usual, Golf Channel and NBC will have simulcasts of all their broadcasts streamed via their LiveExtra service. Here are all your media options for Saturday:

12:30 to 2:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel

2:30 to 6 p.m. -- NBC

2:30 to 5 p.m. -- Golf Channel “Spotlight Coverage” of holes 16 through 18

12:30 to 6 p.m. -- Golf Channel/NBC Sports LiveExtra simulcast stream (includes Spotlight Coverage simulcast)