Tiger Woods live stream 2018: How to watch him play at the Farmers Insurance Open Round 1

I write to encourage you to ignore your work or any other responsibilities you might have on your schedule Thursday afternoon. If someone’s life depends on it, then OK, fine, you have permission to carry on about your day. But otherwise, it’s a depressing, monotonous, frigid time of the year and maybe you should ignore everything for a little break on a Thursday afternoon. Sneak away and watch the return of Tiger Woods.

I won’t pretend to be the hype man for a successful Tiger return. We’ve seen too many false starts and abrupt injuries make prior comebacks short-lived. But it’s a return, and that alone, whether successful or not, is worth getting excited about and watching.

This is Tiger’s second competitive event since his back fusion surgery last April. But that first one was not an official PGA Tour event, rather just a silly-season tourney with an 18-man field. Of course it was still good to see Tiger back playing against some of his peers, the best in the world, in front of the cameras, and with a scoreboard keeping track. But now we’re into the real thing: an official PGA Tour event against a full 156-man field and at a venue that can play as one of the tougher layouts on the PGA Tour.

Torrey Pines has not been kind to Tiger in recent years. There were chipping yips, the deactivated glutes, missed cuts, record-high scores, and pervading ignominy. But this is also still the place where he’s won eight times, including that legendary U.S. Open on a torn ACL.

So there’s history here and while January is not a time for golf to be top of mind, the Farmers Insurance Open is one of the marquee early-season events on the PGA Tour. The Rees Jones redesign can make the course a slog at times, but the presence of Tiger has solidified it over the years.

Woods will tee off Thursday at 1:40 p.m. ET, or 10:40 a.m. local. The Golf Channel coverage will not go live until 3 p.m. ET. There is a 2:30 pregame show that should feature all of Tiger’s shots during that extra 30-minute window. But we’re still not going to get it all from the very first tee on the TV coverage.

PGA Tour Live, the tour’s over-the-top streaming service, will have “bonus coverage” beginning with Tiger’s first tee shot. It will likely be behind a paywall, however, because it does fall during PGA Tour Live’s “featured groups” coverage, which is usually subscription only. PGA Tour Live is a good service — the stream is super clear, using the technology from MLBAM.

But I’ve been around long enough to remember a time when they had streams in a pre-OTT era that were free. The subscription is not exorbitant, but it can still be frustrating when you want to rally a wider sports audience to a moment like this. We haven’t seen Tiger play an official round on the PGA Tour in a full year, so here’s hoping they lift the paywall for that bonus coverage to satisfy the anticipation and excitement for the return on the very first tee.

Here’s your coverage schedule for the opener at Torrey Pines:

3 to 7 p.m. ET — Golf Channel

11:45 a.m. ET — PGA Tour Live starts with coverage from range and opening holes

Featured Groups (PGA Tour Live subscription required)

3 to 7 p.m. ET — PGA Tour Live featured holes coverage (No subscription required)

3 to 7 p.m. ET — Golf Channel simulcast stream

1 to 7 p.m. ET — PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 92/208 and streamed here)