Players Championship 2016 live stream: Time, TV schedule and how to watch Round 2 online

A sleepy stretch on the PGA Tour was shocked to life early Thursday morning when the 2016 Players Championship opened and every dang player on the course started making birdies. It was as easy and benign as TPC Sawgrass can get and almost everyone in the morning wave took advantage, especially the No. 1 player in the world.

Jason Day showed up on the tee just after 8:30 a.m. ET ready to play with Jordan Spieth in the spotlight of PGA TOUR LIVE’s featured groups stream. Day proceeded to bomb in a 30-foot birdie putt on his first hole and then sprint to a course-record matching 9-under round of 63. The birdies dropped in all around him from competitors too, but it was Day we watched light it up while most of the rest of the field played in obscurity before the afternoon TV coverage went live. Having the No. 1 player in the world shoot a course record round at your flagship event had to have the Tour, and their newish over-the-top subscription service, feeling pretty good after the past sleepy month.

The biggest storyline coming to the week was Jordan Spieth’s return to golf. It had been a month since he played, taking one of the longest breaks of his career after Augusta. Spieth finished with an ugly double bogey on Thursday that dropped him a good nine shots back of Day on the leaderboard. But he still said everything felt good in his first competitive round since that disaster on Sunday at the Masters. The Golf Channel crew probably anticipated spending most of their Friday afternoon broadcast on Spieth, but now they’ll also have the red-hot Day as the prime story for their second round coverage.

While the afternoon groups struggled to post low scores in much tougher conditions, the expanded six-hour broadcast on Golf Channel was still among the best of the season. Like CBS with the Masters (although not to that extreme), this is usually an event where NBC and Golf Channel take limited commercial breaks and show as much golf as possible. That seemed to be the case on Thursday afternoon and should especially be the case on Friday with Spieth and Day out during the coverage window.

Prior to that afternoon coverage, there will be multiple streams to watch on PGA Tour Live, which we’ve reviewed several times this week. It’s a huge event for that OTT service and they have all the best names to put on their streams this week. Friday, it’s Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, and Dustin Johnson, among others, playing on the subscription-only stream. The separate free stream focused on the island 17th hole will be up by 9 a.m. too. Here are all your coverage options for the second round at Sawgrass:

9 a.m.-1 p.m. -- Golf Channel “Live From” The Players
1-7 p.m. -- Golf Channel

7:30 a.m. -- PGA Tour Live starts with coverage from range and opening holes

Featured Groups (PGA Tour Live subscription required)