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

Well, it’s safe to say this is probably the most anticipated third round of the Wyndham Championship in many, many decades. Tiger Woods will stroll to the first tee with a share of a 36-hole lead for the first time in more than two years on the PGA Tour. It’s also his first-ever appearance in Greensboro, an annual stop on Tour for more than 70 years, in his almost 20-year career. The entire city, event and course were already all in on Tiger finally showing up for their historic event. That he’s now playing his best golf in years after this miserable and deflating summer has only taking it all up to levels completely incommensurate with this typically quiet regular season finale.

It really is startling to see Tiger there at the bottom of the tee sheet, anchoring the tee times on a weekend round on the PGA Tour. Given where we’ve been all summer, it’s nearly as astonishing as some of those hideous shots and that Saturday slog to a career-worst 85 at Memorial (repeat: nearly). But here he is in the final group with Tom Hoge, going off No. 1 at Sedgefield Country Club at 2 p.m. ET. The pairing is a bit of a ... mismatch? Hoge has a whopping total of 79 career rounds on the PGA Tour. Tiger has a career total of 79 wins on Tour, just three shy of Sam Snead’s all-time record. Hoge’s career earnings? Tiger has cashed that in 63 single events.

When we start comparing career numbers, this is obviously a complete mismatch. It does not get too far apart on the career spectrum, but Hoge is the kind of guy you get at this season finale event sandwiched between the final major and the start of the postseason. The field is full of players with shaky status, those grinding to keep their PGA Tour card, get a card, or stay in the top 125 to get to the FedExCup Playoffs. When asked about his Saturday playing partner, Tiger was not immediately aware of his existence:

Woods and Hoge will go at 2 p.m. ET, targeting a 6 p.m. finish on CBS. Given the way the typically easy course is playing, it’s likely a few players out ahead of them get hot early and their lead is gone before they even hit a shot. We saw Brandt Snedeker post a 61 on Friday, just a day after a trio of players posted 62s. That kind of number is probably out there again so Woods will need to keep the pedal down to stay on top or near the top of the leaderboard.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the third round in Greensboro:

SB Nation video archives: Urban golfing with a U.S. Open champ (2012)