PGA Championship: Marquee tee times for the first two rounds at Bellerive

The PGA Championship is just days away, and the tee times for the first two rounds are out now. Plan ahead to catch your favorites and the game’s biggest stars at Bellerive.

The PGA of America has released the start times for next week’s PGA Championship, and so, you can find out how your favorites will fare, weather depending, of course.

Tee times for any tournament are important, psychologically, for any golfer, no matter what anyone says to the contrary. And sometimes tee times or groupings are important tactically. At major championships, they can have even more significance because tee times and groupings can affect the outcome.

In the first two rounds, every golfer, no matter who it is, will start on the first tee one day and the 10^th tee on the other. Most players do not prefer the early/late tee time rotation when there is a cut, just because, if they are playing poorly, they want to get away from the tournament as soon as possible.

One presumes this allows them to get away from the bad play, as though leaving the site will leave the bad swings and missed putts in that location. As we all know it is the golfee, not the tournament. In other words, there’s no accounting for what goes on in the minds of golfers, professional or otherwise.

Early tee times provide better putting surfaces, more often than not have less windy conditions, and that combination allows guys to get off to a good start in their first round. It may give them an advantage over those who start late, get stomped on greens and endure windier conditions.

On the other hand, late tee times let golfers watch the television coverage to see how the course plays, how the greens are putting and so forth. Is that an advantage? Probably, but that’s the way it goes. It helps the players who are playing in the afternoon both days if they can watch morning play. It helps the late starting groups on the weekend if there’s morning coverage.

Morning coverage typically happens only during major championships, so the players who are playing better get some extra information on how the course plays before they get there.

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Who a golfer plays with can affect him just as much as when he tees off. Nobody talks about that very much. That is perhaps the reason Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have never seemed to play well when in the same group or pairing. Nobody really knows why, but they don’t.

It has to be in their heads because they are both really, really good golfers. Clash of egos? Maybe they both just try so hard to beat each other that they somehow forget what they are doing, which doesn’t make sense, but psychological stuff seldom makes sense because it’s not logical. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer have admitted in the past that it happened to them. They would forget about the rest of the field in the effort to beat each other.

Unfortunately, a lot of late season events put the tee times in order of position on FedEx points list. So, if the number two in FedEx points, Justin Thomas, happened to get flummoxed playing with Dustin Johnson, or vice versa, it could put one or both of them off their games. And in the case of the Playoffs, it could happen for several weeks in a row and actually affect the outcome of the tournament, compared to picking names out of a hat.

Regular PGA Tour events put winners with winners in most cases and not winners with not winners. They modify that somewhat to put golfers with a lot of fans and golfers who are ratings draws (Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson) in the telecast window as often as possible.

That’s one reason, as Phil Mickelson explained, that he would be on one side of the draw, for instance, morning, while Tiger Woods was on the other, or vice versa. It gave television a star every day during the first two days of afternoon-televised golf.

It used to be that anybody who played with Tiger Woods had problems playing well, but several of today’s players have become friendly enough with Woods that they seem to do better, even thrive, when playing with him. Jason Day and Justin Thomas are two examples there.

Some groupings are traditional, like the three major champs of the year playing together at the PGA. This time around, it’s Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka and Francesco Molinari. What will happen with that next year when the PGA moves to May is anybody’s guess.

The weather can turn the start time into the golfer’s friend or enemy, depending on the forecast. If a storm is due to roll through on the first day in the morning, then the afternoon groupings may not get finished. Sometimes they don’t even get started.

AKRON, OH – AUGUST 04: Dustin Johnson plays his shot from the sixth tee during World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational – Round Three at Firestone Country Club South Course on August 4, 2018 in Akron, Ohio. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

The late starters then have to keep going all day the following day because they had the late/early start. So, they get less rest and recovery from day one. The early starters can end up starting on Thursday and then not playing again until Saturday. This is why most golfers can often tell you everything about movies. If it’s raining, they are likely to go to one or more.

But today, it’s mainly television that dictates who plays when. At the PGA Championship, for example, the players you know and probably want to watch, like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler and Dustin Johnson and so on are spread out a little bit, unlike some tournaments that slam them together. The PGA is going to be on for many hours, and so it’s better for ratings to spread the wealth, not cram them together.

This is better for the fans, too, because no golf course with unlimited tickets is big enough to hold the twosome of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. The weight of all those people would likely cause the earth to sag.

So, with consideration to the bending of the earth’s crust, the PGA Championship has elected to sprinkle the big stars throughout the morning and afternoon tee times. Here are some highlights. And beware if you read the full tee time sheet because there are two Zach Johnsons playing. One is Zach R. Johnson from somewhere in Utah, and the other is the Masters and British Open champ Zach Johnson from Iowa.

Next. Tiger and Phil set for Thanksgiving match in Vegas. dark

PGA Championship: Featured tee times for Rounds 1 & 2

Off the 10^th tee Thursday and off the 1^st tee Friday, all times Central Daylight:

7:28 AM and 12:53 PM ( All past PGA champs)

Davis Love III

Martin Kaymer

Rich Beem

7:39 AM and 1:04 PM

Rickie Fowler

Hideki Matsuyama

Ian Poulter

7:50 AM and 1:15 PM

Henrik Stenson

Danny Willett

Pat Perez

8:01 AM and 1:26 PM

Phil Mickelson

Jason Day

Keegan Bradley

8:23 AM and 1:48 PM

Justin Thomas

Rory McIlroy

Tiger Woods

Off the 1^st tee on Thursday and 10^th tee Friday, all times Central Daylight:

12:42 PM and 7:17 AM

Chris Wood

Alex Noren

Matt Kuchar

12:53 PM and 7:28 AM

Dustin Johnson

Bubba Watson

Adam Scott

1:15 PM and 7:50 AM

Patrick Reed

Brooks Koepka

Francesco Molinari

1:26 PM and 8:01 AM

Gary Woodland

Sergio Garcia

Kevin Kisner

1:37 PM and 8:12 AM

Jordan Spieth

Jon Rahm

Justin Rose

1:48 PM and 8:23 AM

Aaron Wise

Paul Casey

Zach Johnson

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