Tiger Woods live stream 2018: How to watch Arnold Palmer Invitational Round 1 online

Thursday should be another record day for the PGA Tour’s over-the-top streaming service, PGA Tour Live. The service is now a couple seasons old, but it’s never really existed when Tiger Woods was playing well and in demand. It’s featured plenty of marquee groups and top ranked players over the past couple seasons, but Woods’ comeback, an actual successful one, has put it in the spotlight in recent weeks. And put it to the test.

Last week at the Valspar Championship, Woods effectively broke the PGA Tour app. The cliche joke was “Tiger broke the internet” when the app started crashing Friday morning just after he took the lead in Tampa. Error messages started popping up on mobile, desktop, and Apple TV. The anger, as you might imagine, was swift and intense. The Tour claimed the outage hit specific areas of the country. They also had it back up and running within a half hour or less and you really missed less than two holes. But still, it was a panicked moment.

Here’s hoping the Tour is prepped and ready for the rush on Thursday morning. Once again Woods will be back on the featured groups stream for his 8:23 a.m. ET tee time with Hideki Matsuyama and Jason Day.

Woods has won at Bay Hill eight times and he’s the heavy favorite yet again this week. That he’s listed anywhere among the favorites is a bit of a miracle in just his fifth start in this latest comeback. But it makes sense given what we watched last week at the Valspar and during his previous start in Palm Beach at the Honda Classic. Now he’s at the most comfortable Florida course of all and it begins bright and early Thursday morning. If he gets rolling or makes a few birdies, expect a rush to PGA Tour Live again.

The paywall will, undoubtedly, upset people too, especially the casual fans who may not even know it exists until they want to watch Woods. The Tour used to have some of these featured groups streams up for free on their old website, but that model went out the window and they partnered up with MLBAM to launch PGA Tour Live. The stream quality is always perfect and the coverage is usually solid — what you want from a broadcast drilling down on just two groups out on the course. But it is a subscription service, which will frustrate some on Thursday when they want their Tiger fix.

Woods’ round will probably fall entirely outside the TV window, which doesn’t start until 2 p.m. ET on Golf Channel. We’d need some weather delay to push his round that late. Golf Channel may have some live look-ins and highlights of his round during their pregame show, which starts at Noon. But PGA Tour Live is really your sole way to watch Thursday morning. Here’s your full media and streaming schedule for Thursday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational:

2 to 6 p.m. ET — Golf Channel

7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. — PGA Tour Live starts with coverage from range and opening holes

• 7:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m. — Free PGA Tour live stream on Twitter

Featured Groups (PGA Tour Live subscription required)

3 to 6 p.m. — PGA Tour Live featured holes Nos. 14 and 16 coverage (No subscription required)

2 to 6 p.m. — Golf Channel simulcast stream

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