Tee Times for PGA Tour's Season Opener


The tee times are all set for the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions. The $5.6 million event starts Friday at the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui, Hawaii.

Cybergolf incorrectly noted in an earlier preview that the tournament begins Thursday - our apologies. The change from the traditional Thursday start to Friday is the Tour's idea of changing things up, a scheduling move that could happen intermittently throughout 2012.

One of the reasons for altering the schedule is the Tour's desire to broadcast tournaments in prime time. That's easily attainable this week. Due to the five-hour time difference between Hawaiian time and East Coast time, airing of the first round will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET. (By the way, next week's Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu will tee off on Thursday, January 12.)

"One of the exciting things about this year is that we're going to be experimenting with a lot of different things - a lot of stuff online, a lot more digital content to our fans - and also we're going to play around with different formats and different times and this is one of them," Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said on Golf Channel's "Morning Drive."

"We will watch to see how it works," Finchem added. "We'll see how it feels, see how the fans react to it. If it's a more compelling and a more efficient way to get what our players are doing in front of our fan base it will be a winner. We're going to try to do some more experimentation in this area."

The field will be comprised of 28 of last year's winners, with 14 twosomes vying for the $1.12 million top prize. Jonathan Byrd returns to defend his title.

Not participating are Phil Mickelson - winner of the Shell Houston Open, U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy, Masters' winner Charl Schwartzel, British Open champion Darren Clarke, two-time winner and world No. 1 Luke Donald, Martin Kaymer and Adam Scott.

Other players with 2011 victories who aren't entered include Fredrik Jacobson, Brandt Snedeker and Dustin Johnson, all of whom are recovering from injuries or coming off surgery. Justin Rose, who won the BMW Championship in September, is staying home with his wife, who just delivered their second baby.

Here are the tee times (all times Hawaiian) for the opening round of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions:

10:35 a.m.: Bryce Molder and Michael Bradley
10:34 a.m.: Harrison Frazar and Ben Crane
10:55 a.m.: Johnson Wagner and Kevin Na
11:05: a.m.: Sean O'Hair and Scott Piercy
11:15 a.m.: D.A. Points and Scott Stallings
11:25 a.m.: Brendan Steele and Jhonattan Vegas
11:35 a.m.: Chris Kirk and Lucas Glover
11:45 a.m.: Martin Laird and Rory Sabbatini
11:55 a.m.: Mark Wilson and Bubba Watson
12:05 a.m.: Keegan Bradley and David Toms
12:15 a.m.: Gary Woodland and Steve Stricker
12:25 a.m.: K.J. Choi and Aaron Baddeley
12:30 a.m.: Webb Simpson and Nick Watney
12:45 a.m.: Jonathan Byrd and Bill Haas

All four rounds will be broadcast live on the Golf Channel. For live scoring, visit http://www.pgatour.com/leaderboards/current/r016/.