2016 Waste Management Phoenix Open: Tee times, pairings for Sunday’s final round

The Waste Management Phoenix Open will serve in its traditional role on Sunday as the appetizer for the Super Bowl. It’s the one of the few regular non-major PGA Tour event that can actually carve out an identity and attract a moderate audience opposite all the pregame inanities that run for five, six, and seven hours before kickoff.

In order to ensure things are wrapped up before the start of the Super Bowl, the PGA Tour will send the remaining field off in groups of three and from split tees. This is typically done on a Sunday because weather has impacted the schedule or the threat of weather will impact a later finish. But there is still limited daylight and always that chance of recurring frost delays early in the morning at this TPC Scottsdale layout, so the entire field is bunched up into two-hour window on the tee sheet. This is how they operated in the past and it works well for this event, given the different constraints.

The leaders and final group of the day will go at 12:50 p.m. ET (10:50 a.m. local). Danny Lee has the advantage with 18 more holes to play, holding a three-shot lead over Rickie Fowler and Hideki Matsuyama. Fowler is the fan-favorite this week and he’s been at or near the top of the leaderboard since Thursday morning. A third-round 70 was his worst of the week and left a little distance between himself and Lee, but the way he’s played over the last 12 months would make him the popular favorite to win yet again on Sunday in Phoenix.

Arizona State alum Phil Mickelson is now also lurking after catching fire on Saturday and posting a 6-under 65. With Lee five shots ahead, Mickelson will probably need some help but we’ve seen him shoot so many mid-to-low 60s rounds, and that unforgettable near-59, on this track that he’s absolutely still a threat. And his round on Saturday pushed him to the penultimate group on Sunday, so if he does start making a run, Lee and the leaders will hear it all happening right up ahead of them.

Mickelson and Fowler playing in the last two groups should make the crowd at the Tour’s biggest party hole, the par-3 16th, that much more rowdy and over-served coming down the stretch. It will still be mid-afternoon in Scottsdale when they do arrive at that scene. The Tour is giving that final group a sizable five-hour cushion to make sure they’re able to crown a winner and go through all the post-tournament festivities before every single sports fan in the country flips to the Super Bowl for the final pregame intros and national anthem. The NBC broadcast is scheduled to run until 6 p.m. but unless there’s a delay, that final trio should be done safely before that.

Here’s the full tee sheet for Sunday’s final round (all times ET)