What To Watch in Round 1: Tiger Time, Live Ghosts, Marquee Pairings and Your Remote

The highly anticipated 150th British Open finally begins Thursday, and Gary Van Sickle has his DVR ready and his tee sheet highlighted with big names.

Gary Van Sickle of Morning Read/SI.com will offer a preview before each round of the 150th British Open. Here's what he's watching:

Set the Clocks for Tiger Time

Your Thursday morning ends at 9:59 a.m., Eastern Standard Time. That’s when Tiger Woods tees off with Max Homa and U.S. Open champ Matt Fitzpatrick. The world called Earth will continue to rotate at approximately 1,000 mph but the world of golf will pause and hold its collective breath. Woods gamely battled to make cuts at the Masters and the PGA Championship earlier this year but clearly his body, battered again from that terrible car accident last year, didn’t allow him to play his best on the weekends.

This is going to be another All-Tiger-All-The-Time major. Television will probably cover every shot he hits over the first two rounds no matter what he’s shooting. That’s OK, a lot of younger generation folks missed the earlier "Legend of Tiger" show and now they’re on board for — well, honestly, I’ve lost count so I’m just going to make up a number here — Tiger 7.0.

Get ready to see a lot of Tiger Woods this week. And surely Rory, too :: Rob Schumacher/USA Today

This Open is a priority for Woods. He’s won twice at St. Andrews and knows there’s a good chance he may not play another Open there. He skipped the U.S. Open to get ready for this one and he walked a lot of golf holes in the days leading up to the first round, something he wouldn’t do if he wasn’t feeling fitter and, more important, and if he didn’t think he had a shot to win. Of course, Tiger always thinks that. His dead-serious preparations at Augusta convinced me to wager a few rubles on him to win. That didn’t work out. I was ignoring him this week until he walked 59 holes between Thursday and Tuesday. That got my attention. So did I drop a just-in-case $4 bet on him to win the Open at 80-1 odds? Maybe …

The Ghosts In the Field

The ghosts of the Old Course may or may not be seen. Who’s that? Old Tom Morris? Young Tom? Laurie Auchterlonie? Harry Vardon?

Nope. The ghosts who haunt the Old Course this week may be Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia and all the other defectors who jumped to the LIV (54 in Roman numerals) Golf Exhibition Series. We’re going to get the answer to the question of whether our TV network pals, who are all business partners in one form or another of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour (formerly European Tour), are going to acknowledge the 54 Golf lads and give them equal attention to the PGA Tour faithful or whether they’ll get The Heisman, what we newsroom types used to call it when you got stiffed/ignored/ghosted.

No doubt the 54 Golf Series will be a topic of conversation on the air. Don’t look for any of it to be pro-54 Golf. Everyone in TV effectively works for the PGA Tour and they all know it. But if a 54 Golf migrant such as Talor Gooch, say, takes the early lead, will he get the coverage a leader normally warrants or will he get Tim Simpson-ed (a guy that CBS almost never showed back in the ‘90s, no matter how well he played — by director’s choice)?

We may find out. I am confident that journalism or a reasonable facsimile will break out and TV will do its job.

You could try a drinking game every time the word “LIV” is mentioned during the telecast. But do not down a drink every time Tiger is shown, not even if it’s just Tiger flashbacks. He’s going to be everywhere …

Check Your Broadcast Equipment

Give your DVR a physical. This is no time to suffer a breakdown. Plenty of Americans are Open geeks and who doesn’t want to savor every minute of the Old Course, especially if the weather gets bad? (Please, oh please, let some gales howl.) But anyone who works for a living probably isn’t going to rise and shine for the start of the broadcast at … 1:30 a.m.?

That is not a typo. The Open airs from 1:30-4 a.m. on Peacock, an NBC streaming service you must pay for. (Well, that takes me out.) Then the Open jumps to USA Network from 4 a.m. until 3 p.m., a mere 11 hours of coverage.

All those newbies who talk about U.S. Open sectional qualifying being Golf’s Longest Day have obviously never been to an Open Championship, where the tee times just keep on coming. The only way this show could get better (I mean, without singling out a few stiffs who should be broadcasting at Wal-Mart) is if Charles Barkley was on the team. A man can dream, can’t he?...

Pulling Out the Pairings Sheet

Now on the tee … Phil Mickelson is in the sixth pairing off the 1st tee at 7:30 a.m. local time if you’re looking for an early marquee sighting. Whether he gets TV time is another story. At 7:52, it can’t be an accident that long-drive competitor Bryson DeChambeau is paired with John Daly, a former Open champ who was the longest hitter by a mile in his day. What does the R&A think of Daly? They’re probably chortling at how small (his drives, not his waistline) are going to look.

Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth and Harold Varner hit it at 3:10 p.m. in the group following Tiger (never a good spot due to the massive crowds moving to follow Tiger). Rory McIlroy goes off at 9:58 a.m. with Collin Morikawa, the defending champ, and Xander Schauffele. It might be a clever wager, although there is no betting at Bushwood, sir, that the winner could come out of this trio.

No need to wait up for the final group at 4:16 p.m. unless you’re a relative of Lars Van Meijel, Jack Floydd and Ronan Mullarney. Cheers on making the field, gents, whoever you are …