Wyndham Championship 2015: Tee times, pairings for Thursday’s round in Greensboro

The Wyndham Championship is one of the oldest events on the PGA Tour. The annual stop in Greensboro has been a fixture on the schedule since the late 1930s. Over the years, as more money has poured into the game, it’s been difficult for the Wyndham to keep up and it has settled into a less-than-ideal spot on the schedule. It may not hold the status as it did decades ago when Sam Snead was dominating Greensboro, but it’s still an important event to the Tour played on a classic course, Sedgefield Country Club.

While the importance has receded, this year will be one of the more anticipated editions in decades. That’s because Tiger Woods, after almost 20 years on Tour, is making his first stop at Greensboro. Woods shocked the golf world late last Friday at the PGA Championship when he entered the tournament. At that point, he was “committed” only because he had to get his name in before the deadline, but the decision to actually stay in and play was 50-50. Then his agent Mark Steinberg announced on Monday that Tiger was confirmed and all of a sudden, the folks in Greensboro had a circus, a money-making circus, coming to town.

Woods will tee off bright and early Thursday morning at 7:50 a.m. ET with Brooks Koepka and Hideki Matsuyama. Tiger’s chances of making the FedExCup are a long shot. He likely needs to win the regular season finale this week to get into the top 125 in the standings and qualify for the FEC first round next week. Tiger currently sits at 187th in the standings. So this is almost certainly Tiger’s last appearance of the season on the PGA Tour. Even just a year ago, Tiger playing the Wyndham and completely out of the postseason picture seemed unfathomable.

However, this is a different world for Tiger and the 286th ranked player decided he’d make the first ever trip to Greensboro. A last-ditch desperate attempt to get into the playoffs is only a part, and maybe a small one at that, of the reason that Tiger is teeing it up this week. I think he firmly believes things are starting to get better and come together with this new swing, and he wants more reps, even if they’re at a tourney he would not deign to patronize in years past. This is a competitive tournament and Tiger wants to get in a few more rounds before his season comes to an abrupt end.

Playing with Koepka and Matsuyama, Tiger will get an up-close view of how far he has to go right now. Those are two of the world class up-and-coming talents on the PGA Tour. They bomb it off the tee and are incredible tee-to-green. That’s obviously the marquee group of the day and expect the Greensboro faithful to be at Sedgefield early on Thursday for Tiger’s first ever appearance.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the opening round at the Wyndham:

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