Bubba Watson and a couple young guns chase Martin Laird at the Phoenix Open, which should serve as a nice alternative to all the stupid Super Bowl pregame festivities.
It's possible that the largest crowd at a sporting event in Phoenix on Sunday is not at the Super Bowl, but rather watching golf at TPC Scottsdale. Rain over the past two rounds has inhibited the Phoenix Open's push to break their own record from last year and become the most attended PGA Tour event ever, but the forecast is better for Sunday and the crowd at the 16th hole should be near capacity.
Martin Laird takes a three-shot lead into the final round after three straight scores in the 60s. Laird is a veteran Aussie on Tour and already has three career wins. He saved critical pars with putts from almost 10 feet in two of his final three holes on Saturday to maintain the three-shot cushion. TPC Scottsdale, however, is a course that can yield numbers in the low-60s so a Sunday charge from down the leaderboard is possible. Laird will likely need to shoot in the 60s again on Sunday in order to keep pace and stay ahead of the chasers.
Laird tees off in the final grouping with Brooks Koepka and Hideki Matsuyama, two of the young studs in all of golf. Koepka went an alternate route as a professional, opting to get his reps overseas on the Challenge and Euro Tours instead of the lesser Tours stateside. It paid off for the FSU product, who posted four Challenge Tour wins in less than a year and then with his first big league victory in November, the Euro Tour's Turkish Airlines Open. A third-round 64 shot him up the leaderboard on Saturday and a comparable number on Sunday could land him his first PGA Tour victory and set up a huge year for the 24-year-old.
Outside of the final group, the top name in contention is probably Bubba Watson, who sits five shots off the pace set by Laird. Bubba should have won this event last year, but gagged it away to Kevin Stadler on the final hole. He's got a history here, however, and could chase down Laird or the leaders on the back nine with some bombs on these gettable par-5s. He tees off with Ryan Moore and Angel Cabrera, another bomber, at 12:25 p.m. ET.
The tee times are set for a finish that leads directly into kickoff down the road at the Super Bowl. There's no chance of a rain delay so everything should go off as scheduled and conclude on CBS just before 6 p.m. If you want to get away from all the inane pregame festivities and pundit yammering, this is a real, actual event to watch instead.
Here's the full tee sheet for Sunday's final round.
Off Tee No. 1:
| Tee Time | Players | ||
| 11:05 a.m. | George McNeill | Boo Weekley | Tony Finau |
| 11:15 a.m. | Keegan Bradley | Brendan Steele | K.J. Choi |
| 11:25 a.m. | Freddie Jacobson | Chad Campbell | Jamie Donaldson |
| 11:35 a.m. | Brandt Snedeker | Jordan Spieth | Sung Joon Park |
| 11:45 a.m. | Stewart Cink | Michael Putnam | Kevin Na |
| 11:55 a.m. | Geoff Ogilvy | Matt Kuchar | Andrew Svoboda |
| 12:05 p.m. | : Graham DeLaet | Brian Stuard | Pat Perez |
| 12:15 p.m. | : Daniel Berger | James Hahn | Rory Sabbatini |
| 12:25 p.m. | : Angel Cabrera | Bubba Watson | Ryan Moore |
| 12:35 p.m. | : Kevin Chappell | Francesco Molinari | Robert Streb |
| 12:45 p.m. | : Justin Thomas | Russell Henley | Russell Knox |
| 12:55 p.m. | : Zach Johnson | Jon Rahm | Ryan Palmer |
| 1:05 p.m. | : Martin Laird | Hideki Matsuyama | Brooks Koepka |
Off Tee No. 10:
| Tee Time | Players | ||
| 11:05 a.m. | Shawn Stefani | Aaron Baddeley | Billy Horschel |
| 11:15 a.m. | Brendon de Jonge | Jhonattan Vegas | Seung-Yul Noh |
| 11:25 a.m. | Hunter Mahan | J.B. Holmes | Mark Wilson |
| 11:35 a.m. | Patrick Reed | Matt Jones | Carlos Ortiz |
| 11:45 a.m. | Justin Leonard | Lucas Glover | Martin Flores |
| 11:55 a.m. | Retief Goosen | William McGirt | Morgan Hoffmann |
| 12:05 p.m. | Luke Guthrie | Charles Howell III | Harris English |
| 12:15 p.m. | Nick Taylor | Michael Thompson | Ricky Barnes |
| 12:25 p.m. | Bryce Molder | Charley Hoffman | Charlie Beljan |
| 12:35 p.m. | Jason Kokrak | Brian Harman | Jason Bohn |
| 12:45 p.m. | Ben Martin | Rickie Fowler | Troy Merritt |
| 12:55 p.m. | Kevin Streelman | Bill Haas | |
| 1:05 p.m. | Cory Renfrew | Brian Davis | |
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