How to watch the East Lake Cup live online, TV schedule, and more

The fourth quarter of the year in golf is, shall we say, not the high point of the schedule. It’s the silly season. You have to get creative and seek out the many odd and oddly scheduled offseason events. It could be a middle-of-the-night WGC in China or the PGA Tour’s random event in Malaysia. Or it’s some newfangled prime time pyrotechnics experiment like we saw the Euro Tour try at the Hero Challenge. The point is, it’s not majors season, and if you really want to still watch golf, you need to discard the typical sensibilities and expectations.

Now comes the East Lake Cup, an early week event that puts college players on one of only a few national TV appearances all year. It’s match play, the format we’re always clamoring for more of all season after we get a brief taste at the WGC Match Play and team cup events — and to a lesser extent at amateur titles like the U.S. Amateur or NCAA championships.

The East Lake Cup is a modern creation wherein Golf Channel gathers the top women’s and men’s college teams at the historic Atlanta course and mimics the NCAA title format. There’s an individual stroke play championship on the first day, which Texas’ Scottie Scheffler and Stanford’s Andrea Lee took home on Monday. The final two days are team match play competitions, with the semifinals on Tuesday and the finals and consolation matches on Wednesday afternoon in Atlanta.

The men’s team finals will put defending national champion Oregon up against Illinois, the perennial B1G powerhouse led by legendary coach Mike Small. Duke and Washington will play for the women’s team title, with the defending national champion Huskies pulling off a bit of a stunning upset of top-ranked Stanford on Tuesday.

Stanford was a ridiculous 34 shots better than Washington during the stoke play event on Monday, but could not beat them in the team head-to-head the very next day. Oregon pulled the same kind of upset over top-seeded Vanderbilt on the men’s side. The consolation matches will feature Texas against Vandy for the men’s draw and UCLA against Stanford in the women’s draw.

Golf Channel will have the coverage Wednesday afternoon from East Lake. It’s not golf season — you have to work for it. This is an easy midweek diversion. Here’s the full media schedule for the final day in Atlanta (all times ET):