Hero World Challenge 2017: Tiger Woods’ tee time, plus full pairings for Friday

We’re out of the gates at the Hero World Challenge and we’ve got room for optimism with Tiger Woods. In his first round in more than 300 days, Woods posted a 3-under 69. It’s a number that is good enough for eighth place in this 18-man event. The spot on the leaderboard, as with all these comebacks, is secondary. It’s how he looks and how he’s getting around the course that matters most in these first starts back in competitive golf.

Tiger didn’t exactly ease into things on Thursday at the Hero World Challenge. He says he’s only been going full speed for about a month, but he was taking some massive cuts at the ball in the opening round. Some of his fellow pros that he’s been practicing with down in South Florida had been telling us the swing speed was back and he was popping the ball off the tee. In front of the cameras for the first time, Tiger was full-go, taking extremely aggressive swipes at the ball.

After the round, Woods said he was “thankful” just to be back out there and playing competitively again. Setting aside the score, there’s reason to be hopeful and still reason to be anxious. There was an awful stubbed chip that lingered for the entire day underneath the surface. But the swing looked different than prior failed comebacks and he seems more comfortable. Of course, “seems” is a word we use when we don’t really know for sure and this can all go awry at any moment.

The score may be secondary this week, but heading to the second round, Woods is right in the middle of the pack. Last year, he had early tee times every day as he struggled to keep the ball in play off the tee and tumbled down the board. He managed to hang with his playing partner, reigning player of the year Justin Thomas, who also posted a nice round of 69.

At the Hero World Challenge, they re-pair the field after every round. Typically in pro golf, your playing partner or partners are with you for the first 36 holes. But when the field gets this small, like at the 30-man FedExCup finale, it makes sense to just re-order right away. Everyone is going out in the same general window of tee times anyways. Tiger will be with Henrik Stenson, the Iceman and one of the players in this youthful field that you could say is a Tiger contemporary. Stenson is 41 years old, the same age as Tiger, but obviously bloomed much later in his career after Woods had done his damage. The two have not played together since 2014 but it should be another light and easy pairing for the tournament host.

Golf Channel will operate on the same schedule on Friday, with their pregame show running from 11:30 to 12:30 and showing every Tiger shot during that window before the official broadcast takes over at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Here’s the full tee sheet for the second round at Albany:

11:10 a.m. — Alex Noren, Daniel Berger

11:21 a.m. — Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed

11:32 a.m. — Kevin Kisner, Hideki Matsuyama

11:43 a.m. — Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson

11:54 a.m. — Charley Hoffman, Justin Thomas

12:05 p.m. — Jordan Spieth, Francesco Molinari

12:16 p.m. — Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson

12:27 p.m. — Matt Kuchar, Kevin Chappell

12:38 p.m. — Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler