2015 WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral: Tee times, pairings for Friday’s round

The most loaded field of the year was little match for Doral’s Blue Monster course on Thursday at the WGC-Cadillac Championship; except for one man, J.B. Holmes, whose 10-under 62 will probably be the round of the year when it’s all over.

While most of the field, which included the entire top 50 of the world rankings for the first time since the 2012 PGA Championship, was brutalized by the conditions and the Gil Hanse redesigned course, Holmes bombed drives off the tee and snuck out with a clean card. He avoided the many water troubles, posted eight birdies and an eagle and bested the average round by an astounding 11.4 shots. The round of the year puts Holmes four shots clear of Ryan Moore, who double-bogeyed his last hole of the day to give the first round leader even more room for the final three days.

Holmes’ competitors, who just got through one of the toughest rounds of their early season, were astounded by the number at the top of the leaderboard.

If the wind is up again, it will be hard for anyone to chase down Holmes if he plays anything close to the show he put on in the first round. They’ll need the big hitter from Kentucky to start putting some of his balls in the drink, which claimed 85 alone on Thursday.

Holmes will begin his second round in the final group of the day at 1:12 p.m. ET so he’ll know what he has in front of him well before he gets on the back nine. Having a later tee time could be a benefit -- it definitely was in the first round because the conditions calmed down as dusk approached. The 18th, for example, was an entirely different hole than the one that repeatedly ate up this world class field earlier in the afternoon. Holmes, playing with Joost Luiten and Thongchai Jaidee, will be the last player to play the hole on Friday evening.

Rory McIlroy was one of those world class players that got blindsided by the course earlier in the afternoon. The world No. 1, who started his year with a second-place finish and a win over in the Middle East, looked shaky for the second straight week in South Florida. He went out with an ugly 40, but then caught a little roll coming into the house to get it back to 1-over for the tournament. He had three birdies and an eagle in a five-hole stretch to make the round a bit more respectable. Fortunately for McIlroy, this limited field event has no cut so he’ll be around for 54 more holes and could be right back near the top of the leaderboard if Holmes comes back to the pack.

Rory is back out with Bubba Watson and Henrik Stenson at 12:39 p.m. ET, just 20 minutes before Golf Channel’s second round broadcast goes live on Friday. So while this field is loaded from top to bottom with headliners in almost every group, expect the cameras to keep featuring that group with the top three players in the world late on Friday.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the second round (all times ET):