Tiger Woods’ tee time, pairings for Thursday at the Hero World Challenge

Wooooooooooo, Tiger’s back. After an interminable 15-month wait, Tiger Woods makes his return to golf at Noon on Thursday. Woods will play with Patrick Reed, who idolized Tiger growing up and became close with him at this year’s Ryder Cup, going off right at Noon on No. 1 tee in the Bahamas.

We don’t really know what to expect from Tiger after a 467-day layoff. The last time we saw him, he posted his best result in the most miserable, embarrassing, and disastrous summer of his career. Woods finished tied for 10th at the Wyndham Championship in August 2015, a mild consolation after missing three straight majors cuts in the ugliest ways last summer. We knew he’d disappear for a few months with his season over, but we didn’t expect the announcement one month later that he had yet another microdiscectomy surgery on his back. Tiger never showed the similar pain like he did in 2014 when he needed that surgery. He was not falling to the ground or wincing in pain, but there was some mention of hip soreness at that Wyndham Championship.

That second microdiscectomy followed by another “procedure” about a month later quickly meant that the 2016 golf year wasn’t looking good. We knew we would have to wait but there were teases, rumors, rumblings and speculation that he might return at The Players or perhaps the Wells Fargo last May. Those reports proved false and the rumors died as the summer wore on and it became clear he’d miss all four majors in a single season for the first time in his career. October brought a false start when he pulled out of the Safeway Open just two days before he was supposed to tee off in Napa, calling his game “vulnerable.”

This time he’s officially on the tee sheet and there’s no turning back now. Tiger played the pro-am on Wednesday which, while it didn’t count, was still the first full round he’s played with fans on the course and media members trudging alongside. This was a very low-key round in which Tiger putted out several times without even pulling the flag. The very unofficial score was a 2-under 70 that included two eagles on the front nine. Suffice to say if he gets going like that on the front nine on Thursday, we’ll all fall into a manic state and lose it before lunch.

Woods’ Noon tee time is an hour before the scheduled broadcast window on Golf Channel, but I’m told their pregame show will be up and running by Noon and broadcast his first tee shot. They will then show highlights for the hour until the official broadcast begins. I would think those highlights will cover just about every shot of those opening holes, and be shown right after they happen.

Here’s the full tee sheet for Thursday’s opening round (all times ET):

11:10 a.m. — Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler

11:20 a.m. — Jimmy Walker, Brandt Snedeker

11:30 a.m. — J.B. Holmes, Zach Johnson

11:40 a.m. — Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson

11:50 a.m. — Jordan Spieth, Matt Kuchar

12 p.m. — Tiger Woods, Patrick Reed

12:10 p.m. — Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka

12:20 p.m. — Hideki Matsuyama, Louis Oosthuizen

12:30 p.m. — Emiliano Grillo, Russell Knox