Farmers Insurance Open 2018: Tiger Woods’ tee time, full pairings for Thursday

There are 156 players in the field on a jam-packed tee sheet at the Farmers Insurance Open, one of the PGA Tour’s early-season marquee events. But only one name really matters — for the first two rounds, at least. That’s because Torrey Pines will once again be the site of a Tiger Woods comeback. It was at this stop last year that Tiger returned from more than a year away from the PGA Tour. That comeback lasted just two PGA Tour rounds and now he’s back again this year after exactly a year away recuperating from another back surgery.

So this is a high-profile event with a hefty purse and lots of FedExCup points played at a venue with major championship pedigree. But all that doesn’t really matter. It could be played in a parking lot for little cash and as an unofficial game. We just want to see Woods back in action, playing competitively against the best pros in the world. That it is an official game on Tour makes it all the more intriguing, and will have us locked into golf in what should be a relatively quiet time of year for the game.

Woods will begin his comeback at 1:40 p.m. ET, or 10:40 a.m. local at Torrey Pines, which is just outside San Diego. He’ll spend the first two rounds with Patrick Reed and Charley Hoffman, two American players his junior who came up idolizing Woods. Reed even tries to dress like him on Sundays, wearing red and black, and has now switched to Nike apparel this year to become as close a facsimile to his idol as possible. It’s kinda weird. Hoffman is a San Diego resident, so he’ll probably have some local following out there walking in the gallery and cheering him on from outside the ropes. But the crowd, which will be massive, is there for TW.

The 156-man field is as big as it gets in golf. The U.S. Open, British Open, and PGA Championship all balloon to that size. Many PGA Tour events do not. But the Farmers has the luxury of using two courses for the first two rounds, so the tee sheet is manageable. And unless some of that pesky marine layer fog delays the AM start, everything usually gets done on time for a cut on Friday night. Utilizing two courses is really the only way to go this time of year with such limited daylight. Three of the five courses on the West Coast swing use multiple courses for the first 36 holes, and the other two events have smaller fields and still often have play suspended due to darkness.

Tiger will begin his week on the South Course, the higher regarded of the two and the spot where he won his legendary 2008 U.S. Open on a torn ACL and broken leg. It’s also where final two rounds are played on the weekend. Woods will begin on No. 1 with a tee shot into a fairway that’s less than 30 yards wide and buffeted by five- and six-inch rough. Torrey has become a slog and the Rees Jones redesign is not especially popular among the architecture experts. Tiger’s first tee shot will be a test right away, and he’ll probably use a 3-wood to get things going.

Here’s your full tee sheet for the opening round at Torrey (all times ET):