Masters tee times 2016: Pairings, featured groups for Thursday’s round

Rejoice! The day has finally come. The Masters is back.

The first, most prestigious, and most popular major championship of the year will tee off Thursday morning from Augusta National Golf Club. It’s one of the best days in golf and one we waited for since Sunday of last year’s Masters ... or at least since the PGA Championship. The first group will be a twosome off No. 1 at 8:20 a.m. ET, but honorary starters Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Arnold Palmer will officially open the tournament about 15 minutes before that. Palmer will not be able to take a swing this year, but he will be down on the tee to preside over the festivities and keep the other two in line.

The Masters sets itself apart from the other three majors in many ways, and one of the most significant is how small and exclusive a field they host at Augusta. This year’s group totals 89 players, while the other majors all have a field of 156 bursting at the seams. As you can imagine, this gives the green jackets a lot of flexibility with tee times. No one has to play the course starting on the No. 10 tee, which is anathema at this tournament. The U.S. Open will squeeze their field through the first round by sending them off in groups of three off split tees from sun-up to sun-down. At the Masters, there’s time to have a coffee, grab a muffin, hang out, and then go warm up before the morning wave starts.

The Masters, like any golf tournament, spreads the superstars and favorites out on the tee sheet. There are anchors in the morning half of the draw and some in the afternoon half. The difference at Augusta, of course, is there is no TV coverage until 3 p.m. ET. That frustrating grasp to the tradition of limited coverage is alleviated slightly this year because they expanded the coverage of their featured groups stream. In years past, that stream on Masters.com would not start until noon. At long last, they have now added about three more hours of coverage on that stream and will start it right from the 1st tee. And lucky us, the most benevolent green jackets have chosen the Rickie Fowler group at 9:26 a.m. and the Jordan Spieth group at 9:48 a.m. as the two featured groups to start that stream on Thursday. Just wonderful.

In the back half of the draw, the big names playing for the afternoon ESPN cameras will be Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, and Bubba Watson. McIlroy is out in the very last group of the day and should have more of his round shown on TV than anyone else. We don’t really know what to expect from Rory. Many would argue he’s still the most talented player in the world. But his press conference on Tuesday wasn’t exactly inspiring, as he lamented how it hadn’t yet clicked all together for him this season. That could happen this week, but he may also be up against much windier than normal conditions at Augusta and he’s not at his best playing in the wind. He also seemed frustrated with having to wait around the entire first day for that last tee time.

Thursday is supposed to have the sketchiest weather of all four rounds, with rain likely overnight and into the morning. That may delay things a little bit in the early part of the tee sheet, but it is supposed to clear, save for that wind, for the afternoon and the rest of the weekend.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the opening round at Augusta:

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