Valspar Championship 2018: Time, TV schedule for Tiger Woods on Saturday

Tiger Woods is now in the fourth start of his latest comeback and Tigermania finally hit a full roar this week at the Valspar Championship. Tiger took the solo lead for an extended stretch on Friday morning at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course, and the sports world lost its mind. He actually broke the Internet, sort of, as PGA Tour Live’s streaming service went down with Tiger in the middle of his round and sitting on the lead. It was madness and what we’d been waiting for after his first few events flew under the radar, by ridiculous Tiger standards.

Woods did not hold his solo lead and Corey Conners came out in the afternoon wave to take a two-shot margin over a group at 4-under. So Tiger won’t be in the final pairing of a weekend round on the PGA Tour, but he’s pretty damn close and that’s still a surreal statement to type given we’re just four tournaments into this comeback. Tiger will play alongside Brandt Snedeker in the penultimate group on Saturday, going off at 1:45 p.m. ET. The PGA Tour is sending the entire field off No. 1 tee in twosomes, so the pace should be pretty brisk and Tiger should finish up just before 6 p.m. ET in Tampa.

Golf Channel will have the early coverage of his round, coming on the air a good 45 minutes before the Big Cat tees off. That’s the benefit of Woods finally having a late tee time, and thank God he does, because there’s no PGA Tour Live streaming in the morning. Typically, they would be up and running with featured groups streams on the biggest names in the field. But this is the first event in awhile they have punted on the weekend. The Valspar is usually not one of the bigger events of the season but it was loaded this year. We got lucky on Saturday with Tiger playing his entire second round during the TV window.

Golf Channel’s sister network, NBC, will bring it home for the late-round coverage from 3 p.m. onward. Many were asking where Johnny Miller was last week for the WGC Mexico Championship and at this late stage (it’s perhaps his final year as the lead analyst), Johnny makes his own schedule. He can take a few lesser events or strenuous travel events off and so he’s still waiting to make his 2018 debut. I’d imagine he will be the lead analyst in the booth at Bay Hill next week. For now, it’s Gary Koch with Dan Hicks on the call for NBC.

Here are your coverage options for Saturday at the Valspar Championship:

1 to 3 p.m. ET — Golf Channel

3 to 6 p.m. ET — NBC

1 to 6 p.m. -- Golf Channel / NBC Sports LiveExtra simulcast stream

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