How to watch Tiger Woods at Hero World Challenge live online on Friday

A sleepy silly season event in early December is not supposed to have the golf world worked up like this. But it won’t be surprising if Thursday’s ratings of the first round of the Hero World Challenge are some of the biggest of the year, including the first rounds of the major championships. That’s because it ended a 466-day wait to see Tiger Woods play competitive golf again, and that’s largely all anyone cared about on an otherwise slow Thursday afternoon in the sports world.

Now Tiger’s back again for more on Friday and while the anticipation will be slightly dialed back because he’s already got a round under his belt, the interest will be among the largest of the season for a Friday afternoon second round. The big problem is that Tiger finished his first round in second-to-last place and that means he will have the first tee time of the day at 11:12 a.m. ET. That’s almost two hours before Golf Channel’s second round broadcast is supposed to go live.

Woods started an hour before the Thursday broadcast and Golf Channel worked around that to give the people what they wanted. Their “pregame” show went live right at Noon for his first tee shot in 16 months, then showed his every shot thereafter as part of highlight look-ins while they talked back in the studio. The second round will present a larger problem because now he’s going 48 minutes before even that pregame show is supposed to come on the air. Their Morning Drive program is supposed to be live during the start of his round and that’s another studio show so hopefully there will be more of those highlight look-ins to chronicle the front nine of his round. That’s the spot on the course where he looked his best and had us all fired up early on Thursday.

When the actual tourney broadcast goes live at 1 p.m., Tiger should be close to making the turn. If you’re unable to watch on TV and stuck in an office on a December Friday, there will be a simulcast stream of Golf Channel’s coverage, including those studio and pregame shows, running all afternoon. This should be a sleepy pre-holiday event but Tiger has made it must-watch and one of the biggest December ratings ever.

Here are all your media options for Friday in the Bahamas.

Noon to 1 p.m. -- Golf Channel pregame show with coverage of Tiger’s start

1 to 4:30 p.m. -- Golf Channel simulcast stream