After a one-day departure from tradition, the R&A is back to sending players at the Open Championship off one tee with more than six-hours of twosomes on Sunday.
We have a fantastic final pairing on Sunday at the Open Championship. The only problem is there's a gulf between those two players on the leaderboard.
Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler will go out in the final tee time on Sunday at Royal Liverpool. They're often cited as two of the tops stars of the post-Tiger generation in golf. Rory has a much more distinguished resume, especially at the majors, but Rickie has beaten him head-to-head in the past and has been the most consistent player at the majors this year. He's likely going to finish in the top five for the third straight major this season (T5 at Augusta, T2 at Pinehurst). But he's almost certainly not going to win.
That's because McIlroy will head out with a six-shot cushion over his playing partner. For a moment on the back nine on Saturday, the two shared the lead at 12-under. Whether Rory was scoreboard watching and realized his four-shot lead was gone or not, the Ulsterman was unperturbed by the charge and swiftly cast Fowler aside with two eagles in his final three holes. He's now at 16-under while Fowler's 4-under round of 68 was good enough to get him just to double digits at 10-under.
McIlroy doesn't have a cast of chumps chasing him, with Fowler in the final group and the duo of Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia in the penultimate tee time. Those are four of the top talents in the world, so should Rory shockingly come back at all, at least one of those players will take advantage.
After doing away with a 143-year-old tradition on Saturday, the R&A will be back to sending players off just the No.1 tee in twosomes. Saturday's round was moved way up and condensed into two hours of tee times, going off both the 1st and the 10th in threesomes. The tee sheet would normally span a seven-hour window on Saturday, but expected storms caused the R&A to make the sudden change (much to the outcry of the purists demanding the tradition be upheld and links golf started at just the 1st tee).
With that crisis behind us, we're back to six-plus hours of tee times rolling off No. 1 all day. Charley Hoffman and Billy Hurley III will be out first at 3:35 a.m ET. Tiger Woods, currently in a tie for 58th at 3-over, will play with Jason Dufner at 4:45 a.m. ET. ESPN will have its "Tigercam" stream up and running if you want to watch the 14-time major winner play out the string before the TV coverage comes on at 6 a.m. ET. Woods was barely shown during the TV broadcast on Saturday, and that will probably be the case again on Sunday. Reigning champion Phil MIckelson, who is also out of it at 1-under, will tee off at 6:45 a.m. alongside Angel Cabrera.
Here are some of the notable tee times for the final round Hoylake (all times ET):
| Tee Time | Players | |
| 4:45 a.m. | Tiger Woods | Jason Dufner |
| 6:45 a.m. | Phil Mickelson | Angel Cabrera |
| 8:40 a.m. | Justin Rose | Graeme McDowell |
| 8:50 a.m. | Darren Clarke | Charl Schwartzel |
| 9:00 a.m. | Jim Furyk | Robert Karlsson |
| 9:10 a.m. | Adam Scott | Matteo Manassero |
| 9:20 a.m. | Edoardo Molinari | Victor Dubuisson |
| 9:30 a.m. | Dustin Johnson | Sergio Garcia |
| 9:40 a.m. | Rickie Fowler | Rory McIlroy |
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