How to watch the 2018 Waste Management Phoenix Open online, TV schedule and more

One man’s Super Bowl Sunday is another man’s Waste Management Phoenix Open Sunday.

It is arguably the PGA Tour’s most unique event. It is definitely the rowdiest. It is definitely the drunkest, although there are several contenders on Tour for such distinction. There is no party, no scene like it in golf. It’s just that golf is secondary and the golf is primarily the point in the final round. The party subsides a bit on Sunday compared to the full roar of Friday afternoon and Saturday. What’s left on Sunday are the lingerers, the people who would stay at your house drinking until the sun comes up or your demand they go home. Sunday is mostly a recovery day and the golf is supposed to become the primary focus, which is not as fun for many.

But this Sunday, the golf gods have blessed us with a loaded leaderboard that should, if you have any damn sense, serve as suitable counterprogamming to all the Super Bowl pregame stupidity. We have 12 players within three strokes of the lead, which is held by Rickie Fowler, one of the game’s biggest stars and the kind of leader you want heading into Sunday. The group of chasers includes Phil Mickelson, the fan-favorite and ASU alum who has been playing here for decades but has not won on the PGA Tour since 2013. There’s also Jon Rahm, maybe the next Phil, an ASU product who is already No. 2 in the world and primed for superstardom. Former NCAA and U.S. Am champ Bryson DeChambeau, rookie of the year Xander Schauffele, and former rookie of the year Daniel Berger are all within striking distance too and playing in the final two or three groups on the tee sheet.

So this tournament’s identity and glory is in the party. But this Sunday, the golf has a chance to be pretty good too. There’s no need to watch hours and hours of Super Bowl pregame fluff.

Now comes the hard part — actually showing us the golf. Saturday’s coverage at the Phoenix Open was an unmitigated disaster. The coverage gap is a known problem. People have screamed about it on Twitter for years now. They’re attempting to cut the 30-minute gap, or blackout, to 15 minutes this year. So on Saturday when Golf Channel went off the air with their early-round coverage at 3:45 p.m. ET, you’d think we would only miss a hole or two during the 15-minute break. But no, as is often the case, the college basketball game on CBS ran long. It often runs long -- this one ran interminably long. I burst out laughing when I switched to CBS at 4 p.m. ET and there were still 10 minutes left in Mizzou-Kentucky. The result was more than an hour between live shots shown (the first on CBS came at 4:49 p.m. to be exact) and some extremely angry golf fans on Twitter (the CBS Golf account got “ratio’d”).

The quick rebuttal when you start yelling about this insane TV coverage gap is that there’s a livestream of the coverage during the gap. I don’t care. That’s not good enough. You’re turning away the audience and making it harder to come back, and not everyone may be in a spot where streaming is an easy move to make. It’s madness and inexcusable and the first two weeks, including last Saturday with people trying to watch Tiger Woods’ first event in a year, with CBS back on the call have been a mess. Maryland and Wisconsin will play on CBS on Sunday afternoon. Here’s hoping that doesn’t run long or there will be more angry tweets.

Here’s your media schedule for Sunday’s final round:

1 to 2:45 p.m. ET — Golf Channel

3 to 6 p.m. ET — CBS

11:30 to 6 p.m. ET -- PGA Tour Live featured holes coverage

1 to 2:45 p.m. ET — Golf Channel LiveExtra simulcast stream

3 to 6 p.m. ET — PGATour.com/CBS simulcast stream

1 to 6 p.m. ET — PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 92/208 and streamed here)