2016 Quicken Loans National: Tee times, pairings for Sunday’s round

The Quicken Loans National was not exactly dealt a winning hand on this condensed and manic 2016 summer schedule. The annual DC-area event, hosted by Tiger Woods, comes right after the U.S. Open, the toughest and most grueling week in golf, and right before the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. Almost every top player in the world is going to tee it up at a major and WGC, with all that easy money and world rankings points available, leaving the QL National in a rough spot.

The field, however, was better than I expected, given that spot on the schedule and with so many majors and big events coming in the next six to eight weeks. There’s also the venue, Congressional Country Club, host of multiple U.S. Opens and a PGA Championship. It’s a nice departure from the TPC courses that dot the PGA Tour schedule and a can be a draw unto themselves. And now that we’ve reached the final round, the event has delivered one of the better leaderboards they could have expected given the strength of the field. There are stories throughout the first couple pages of the board and several big names playing in the afternoon wave of tee times.

Ernie Els and Billy Hurley III will anchor the tee sheet, going off in the final pairing at 2:25 p.m. ET. It’s hard to believe Els is back in contention at a PGA Tour event after what we saw just a couple months ago at the Masters. He’s dealt with the putting yips at different times in his career, but it’s been most acute over the past year and it exploded in the most publicly embarrassing fashion at the game’s biggest major -- that six-putt on Augusta’s first green. Els admitted he had the heebie-jeebies and needed a “brain transplant” to get rid of those yips, so you assumed it would be a long way back to contention. But here he is, playing great golf again at a course where he won his second U.S. Open back in 1997. It’s good to have Els near the top of a leaderboard and literally no one would be against him winning on Sunday.

Hurley III is a local with almost no history of PGA Tour success. But he knows this course and this event. He’s a military vet with a different route to golf. It was at the 2015 Quicken Loans National when Hurley went public and made a plea to help find his missing father, in one of the more heart-wrenching press conferences you’ll see. Hurley’s dad was found after that press conference, but he committed suicide a few weeks later. So it’s been a tragic and trying year for Hurley, but his connection to this event is strong and his first career win coming at Congo would be an amazing story.

In addition to Hurley and Els, there’s also Jon Rahm, a former No. 1 amateur in the world who is lighting it up in his first start as a pro. Former major winners Vijay Singh and Webb Simpson are also out late in the day again on Sunday. Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, and Patrick Reed are probably too far back to win, but they’re inside the top 20 and will be playing in the TV coverage window and in front of the afternoon crowds.

So there’s some quality here on what is an otherwise sleepy sports Sunday. Here’s the full tee sheet for Sunday’s final round: