PGA Championship live stream 2018: How to watch Thursday online

The season’s final major gets a bad rap as a distant fourth in importance and identity. But a major is a major and there are only four of them. It doesn’t matter how you sort them after that, really. The PGA does not have the distinct identity that each of the three other majors have, but it’s still a major and has provided a bucket of great championships and moments.

One way it’s not up to snuff is TV coverage. The Masters, of course, does things their own way and prefers limited coverage. It’s a tradition. But the the two Opens have long embraced TV coverage throughout the day, almost from sun-up to sun-down. The Open and Golf Channel now actually run coverage from the very first tee ball at 1:30 a.m. ET Thursday through to the trophy ceremony on Sunday. It’s an abundance but also feels appropriate for a major. We should be able to watch from the start and drop in at any time.

Welllll, the PGA still has an antiquated arrangement. The Thursday and Friday TV windows run just six hours long. That’s not really commensurate with what a major should get. It’s the same amount of hours as the first round of The Players and the WGC Match Play, and just slightly more than several other regular-season PGA Tour events. That shouldn’t happen at a major like this but those are the confines of this old-ass TV deal.

So Thursday means we will be relegated to livestreams throughout the morning before TNT — yes, TNT — comes on the air at 2 p.m. It’s the one and only time TNT broadcasts golf. They use a CBS production crew but it’s still not ideal to have a network that never covers golf all of a sudden have a major.

If you’re looking to watch Tiger Woods on Thursday morning on TNT, you are going to get a bunch of Charmed and Supernatural. You can, however, find Woods playing in that supergroup with Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy over on PGA.com‘s featured groups streams. That’s available on desktop, on WatchTNT, and on the PGA Championship app. That app had some problems at times last year and Woods wasn’t even involved. Expect a flood of interest and traffic Thursday with no TV coverage and the biggest draw in the history of the game out on the course.

Here are your coverage options for that opening round:

2 to 8 p.m. — TNT

Noon to 8 p.m. — PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 92/208) or on PGA.com