Tiger Woods’s tee time, pairings for Saturday at Hero World Challenge

This is more like it.

On Friday morning, it appeared Tiger Woods might have to spend three straight days at his own event playing all alone and in last place. That’s because Woods dropped from second-to-last into last before he ever hit a tee shot in the second round. Justin Rose withdrew with a back problem, an issue that he tried to play through because he’s a resident at this Albany course and wanted to support Tiger’s event. But that WD left us with an odd-numbered field and Tiger DFL.

It would have been reasonable, almost expected, for Tiger to languish at the bottom of the leaderboard and play the entire weekend in that leadoff time all by himself. This is a small but loaded field of the top players in the world, ones who aren’t coming in cold after 466 days away from the Tour.

Tiger, however, put together a classic Tiger round and obliterated any tempered expectations with a flawless 7-under round of 65. It was good enough to bump him from dead last right into the middle of the pack and wipe out the possibility of playing solo throughout the weekend. Now he’ll tee off with Rickie Fowler at 12:26 p.m. ET on Saturday. While this field is packed with superstars, no one else really matters this week. The stakes aren’t high for anyone, and we want to see every Tiger moment. Still, the Tiger-Rickie pairing is a tasty one and we’ll see every shot from that group on the Golf Channel and NBC.

Woods played his second round at a brisk pace, finishing up in under three hours. That’s obviously going to change on Saturday with a playing partner, but a big part of his success during that 65 was the rhythm of the round. He cruised from hole to hole. With Fowler interrupting for his round, the pace should be about four hours with a finishing time well before darkness in the Bahamas. These guys are not exactly grinding over every shot, and with just 17 players, the pace is going to be quick.

The last group of Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama will go at 1:10 p.m. with a scheduled finish right around 5 p.m. ET on NBC. Here’s the full tee sheet for Saturday’s third round (all times ET):

11:42 a.m.: Jimmy Walker
11:53 a.m.: Russell Knox, Emiliano Grillo
12:04 p.m.: Patrick Reed, Zach Johnson
12:15 p.m.: Henrik Stenson, Brooks Koepka
12:26 p.m.: Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler
12:37 p.m.: Jordan Spieth, J.B. Holmes
12:48 p.m.: Bubba Watson, Brandt Snedeker
12:59 p.m.: Matt Kuchar, Louis Oosthuizen
1:10 p.m.: Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama