Wells Fargo Championship 2018: Time, TV schedule for Tiger Woods, field on Friday

If you want to watch Tiger Woods on TV on Friday morning, you’re out of luck. Woods will play bright and early and well before Golf Channel’s coverage of the second round of the Wells Fargo Championship from Quail Hollow in Charlotte. Golf Channel’s contract with the PGA Tour restricts it to only so many hours of coverage of these full-day events, and during only specific windows. There’s occasionally some flexibility to add an hour or always go long, but not the kinda of drastic move to shift their entire Friday coverage plans up from the afternoon to first thing in the morning.

So Tiger, who goes off at 7:40 a.m. ET alongside Masters winner Patrick Reed and defending U.S. Open champ Brooks Koepka, will play his entire round outside the TV window. You can, however, watch the trio on PGA Tour Live’s featured groups stream. The Tour’s over-the-top streaming service, which is just a couple years old, has hit the jackpot this year with the return of Tiger. He’s obviously always going to get one early morning round at all these full field events, which means he’s getting prime PGA Tour Live coverage at least one day. So the Tour has had five starts, from California to Florida, to capitalize on the spike. Tiger even broke the service as he made a charge at the Valspar Championship in Florida in March.

While the Masters has come and gone, we’re now hitting the high point of the season, when there are majors and big-time events every month. Tiger’s back for the first time in three weeks and he’ll play again next week at The Players, the Tour’s biggest event on the calendar. It’s likely we’ll see another spike in demand for their OTT service on this Friday.

You can now also watch a simulcast of this streaming coverage on ESPN+, that network’s new OTT streaming service. They announced a deal with the PGA Tour to carry their featured groups and holes coverage last month. They’re also offering a free 7-day trial right now, which could be a workaround if you’re unsure of committing to a subscription and really just want to watch Tiger on this specific Friday. It’s a nice way to ignore your work in the morning and get to the weekend faster.

Here’s your full media schedule for the second round of the Wells Fargo Championship:

2 to 6 p.m. ET — Golf Channel

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

• ESPN+ also now has simulcast of the PGA Tour Live coverage

• 7 a.m. - 8 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 17 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)