WGC Match Play 2015: Tee times, TV schedule for Thursday

The new WGC Match Play format has done away with a single elimination round right out of the gate, but Thursday’s matches will essentially be do or die for several big names in the field. Every player in the field is guaranteed three matches in a round-robin play through a four-man pool. But falling in an 0-2 hole after the first two days would make Friday irrelevant.

So who is facing a potential 0-2 hole? Well, there’s the defending champ at this event, Jason Day. He’s had a strong first four months of the year, popping up on the first page of the leaderboard at almost every event he’s entered. He’s long been hailed as one of the top young talents in the game, and a third career win earlier this season set up the potential for a monster year. An early exit for the defending champ would be an unexpected turn. He got wiped out by the lowest seed in his pool, so it may only get tougher over the next two days, starting with Branden Grace at 4:50 p.m. ET

In addition to Day, other highly ranked and historically successful match play golfers on the ropes include Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley and Matt Kuchar. Poulter has held the throne of best match play player in the world thanks to his repeated deep runs at this event and his domination in the Ryder Cup. While the scoring format may be the same, those two settings can be dramatically different.Yet Poulter always seems to succeed. He won this event in 2010 and has made it to the final four multiple other times. His start this year, however, was ugly and Webb Simpson whooped him on Wednesday.

He’ll need to find a fix and fast if he wants any chance at making the single elimination Sweet 16 bracket.

The size of the field, the format, and the West Coast venue give the Tour a ton of flexibility when it comes to scheduling. Match play tends to move much faster than stroke play. Players are conceding putts and holes so not every shot is stressed over or taken. Matches can end early on the back nine, keeping the course relatively open and unclogged. It’s just typically a smooth pace and we saw that on Wednesday. There’s also only 64 players to get out on the course, which is much less than half of the normal Thursday field at a regular PGA Tour event.

So the first tee time will not go off until just before 1 p.m. back in the eastern U.S. With that late tee sheet, Golf Channel will deliver that rare primetime golf coverage over the next two days. Thursday’s broadcast will run from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. That should be plenty of time for all the matches to conclude, but two late matches on Wednesday went to extra holes so GC stayed on the air well past 10 p.m.

Both Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth will be out on the course during the coverage window. McIlroy will be a little deeper into his match, which starts at 2:50 p.m. against Brandt Snedeker. Spieth’s entire match should be shown on GC. He’s out at 5:30 p.m. against Matt Every.

Here’s the full match schedule for Thursday at Harding Park (all times ET):

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