Tee time, TV schedule for The Match: Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson

Save for a few years at the beginning, the careers of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have overlapped almost perfectly. Phil is six years older and turned pro ahead of Tiger, but both hit the peak of their powers at the same time, which was a pretty tough break for Mickelson.

But despite all those years playing in the same events, they rarely went out together. This is a product of how the PGA Tour and the governing bodies that run the majors set up the tee sheet. They need to spread the wealth around and because Tiger and Phil were often the two biggest names in the field, they usually played on opposite ends of the draw. Rarely did tournament organizers use all their ammo on one tee time.

For example at the U.S. Open on Thursdays, Phil would play in the morning and Tiger in the afternoon and then vice versa on Friday. It kept the television networks happy and fans on the ground could flock to that particular group throughout the day. They played together on the weekends when they both slotted on the same spot on the leaderboard, but that was rare, too. We have only seen them play side-by-side a handful of times — 2014 PGA, this year at The Players to name a couple — and it’s always felt like we were getting robbed.

There is nowhere else to put them on Friday. There are only two players on the course and it’s winner-take-all for $9 million. They are the show and it should be a piece of fascinating entertainment. It’s a spectacle that has probably turned off some hardcore golf fans but this event is not meant to capture just the usual golf audience. The promotion has looked comparable to a major Vegas boxing match or UFC fight. There’s really no need to keep this looking the same way golf looks every other week of the year.

The broadcast is probably going to look and sound like nothing you’ve seen before on golf coverage (I went into this more here). Gambling and side wagering will be encouraged and embraced. There will be predictive data on the screen and drones in the sky and mics on the players. The television product is probably the most interesting piece of this and what will define whether the experiment succeeds or fails and can become a replicable model in the future.

Tiger and Phil will tee off at 3 p.m. ET at Shadow Creek outside Las Vegas. One assumption when this endeavor was originally announced was that the two would play at least a portion of this match under the lights. That will not be the case with a Noon local start. The last iteration of these made-for-TV matches made night golf a part of the proceedings, with the last several holes played under temporary stadium lighting. That was the draw of ABC’s “Monday Night Golf” series that ran during the early aughts and featured these two stars.

This will be a one-on-one game with no fans and only a select group of VIPs on the grounds. That, combined with a Noon local start, should not exactly make for the most live environment around the Match but the priority here is the TV audience because it’s, well, a made-for-TV event.

The Match should run under four hours. There are no commercials and there will be banter and side bets to fill the time. That may slow pace of play down but this is a two-man game where not every hole will be finished out and no one else is on the course to slow things down. It should move and be done in four hours at a maximum. Here are your start time and broadcast details:

The Match start: 3 p.m. ET

Price: $19.99

Online Streaming: B/R Live

TV: You can purchase through DirectTV or AT&T U-Verse. The event will also be distributed through other providers such as Comcast, Charter, Cox, Verizon and Altice in the U.S. and Rogers, Shaw and Bell in Canada through iNDEMAND and Vubiquity

Watch in 4K: DirecTV channel 106 is offering a 4K edition for $29.99.