Tiger Woods will be grouped with the other reigning major championship winners for the first two rounds of the PGA Championship and will tee off at 8:24 a.m. Thursday at Bethpage Black on Long Island.
Woods will play with defending PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka (who also won last year’s U.S. Open) and Open champion Francesco Molinari in a traditional grouping of major championship winners. They will go off the 10th tee. They will be off the first tee on Friday at 1:49 p.m.
The PGA has moved from its long-time date in August to May for the first time since 1948.
Woods, who won the Masters last month by a stroke over Koepka, finished second to the three-time major winner at last year’s PGA Championship played at Bellerive in St. Louis. Molinari won The Open at Carnoustie, where Woods played with him during the final round and tied for sixth.
In two previous majors at Bethpage, Woods won the U.S. Open in 2002 and tied for sixth in the tournament won by Lucas Glove in 2009.
Among some of the other early starters on Thursday are Sergio Garcia, Justin Thomas and Adam Scott at 7:40 a.m. and Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson and Justin Rose at 8:02 a.m.
No. 1-ranked Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth are in the afternoon wave on Thursday and start at 1:16 p.m. Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson and Jason Day tee off at 1:38 p.m.
Unless there are withdrawals prior to the first round, the PGA boasts all of the top 100 players in the Official World Golf Ranking.