Hyundai Tournament of Champions 2016: Tee times, pairings for Thursday’s 1st round

After an interminable (or way-too-short) two-month break, the PGA Tour returns Thursday afternoon from Maui. The annual Hyundai Tournament of Champions will tee off at Kapalua, the traditional starting spot for the PGA Tour’s new year. The season, of course, technically started way back in October with the PGA Tour’s third straight wrap-around schedule format. Those six weeks back in the fall count towards this year’s FedExCup totals, and the winners get a spot in this week’s event. But Kapalua still feels like the start of the season -- tradition and the calendar flipping to a new year dictate it.

The PGA Tour has mastered the format for this opener and it has settled in nicely to start the year. Winners of official PGA Tour events from the past 12 months are the only invitees. There are 32 players in the field this week and almost every big-name winner from last year is here. Rory McIlroy, who won just twice last year on the PGA Tour, will skip the trip out to Hawaii and likely make his 2016 debut on the Euro Tour in Dubai. Aside from Rory’s absence, however, everyone is here. The Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 6 ranked players will tee it up and they are the continually hailed faces of this new generation.

The PGA Tour loaded those heavy hitters all at the bottom of the tee sheet, where they will play their opening round of the year largely in prime time for the audience back in the frozen eastern United States. Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed will anchor the tee sheet at 5:50 p.m. ET, the No. 1 player in the world with his former Ryder Cup partner, who shot up the rankings to No. 10 thanks to a strong close to the year playing on the European Tour. Golf Channel’s broadcast will go live at 6 p.m. ET, but expect them to show Spieth’s first shot of the year during their pregame show (and then every shot thereafter during the coverage window).

In addition to Spieth, who is now the face of this tour, the final tee times also include a Rickie Fowler-Jason Day pairing, Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson. This event sometimes lacks juice -- you might get an inordinate amount of random winners from the previous year. It’s also a trip, one that almost all of us would love to take for our work but is not always appealing to world-class millionaire golfers. Tiger and Phil regularly skipped it, choosing instead to start the year on the West Coast. It’s rare to have the winners of all four majors from the previous year.

This year, however, the heavyweights of the tour are here. The course is as scenic as it gets on tour but it’s definitely quirky and doesn’t have the most character or history. No matter, this should be a good show. Here are your Thursday tee times for the Hyundai ToC (all times ET):