KAPALUA, Hawaii – The last two Players of the Year on the PGA Tour will kick off the year with a prime-time pairing on Thursday at the SBS Tournament of Champions.
Jordan Spieth, who won the Jack Nicklaus Award in 2015 and the year lid-lifter by eight strokes last January, will play with Dustin Johnson, last season’s player of the year, at 5:50 p.m. (ET) on Day 1 at Kapalua.
SBS Tournament of Champions: Articles, photos and videos
The world Nos. 3 and 5 played in the same group six times in 2016, including all four rounds at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and famously dueled at the ’15 U.S. Open (although they weren’t paired together on Sunday at Chambers Bay), which Spieth won when Johnson three-putted the 72nd hole.
World No. 1 Jason Day will be paired with Patrick Reed in the day’s penultimate group (5:40 p.m. ET); while Cody Gribble and Mackenzie Hughes, the only rookies in the winner’s-only field, will lead off the opening day of the ’17 schedule with a 3:20 p.m. tee time.
Round 1 tee times at the SBS Tournament of Champions (All times Eastern):
3:20 p.m.: Cody Gribble, Mackenzie Hughes
3:30 p.m.: Rod Pampling, Pat Perez
3:40 p.m.: Aaron Baddeley, Greg Chalmers
3:50 p.m.: Vaughn Taylor, Brendan Steele
4:00 p.m.: Billy Hurley III, Brian Stuard
4:10 p.m.: Charley Hoffman, Tony Finau
4:20 p.m.: Branden Grace, Jim Herman
4:30 p.m.: James Hahn, Fabian Gomez
4:40 p.m.: Daniel Berger, Jhonattan Vegas
4:50 p.m.: Bubba Watson, William McGirt
5:00 p.m.: Si Woo Kim, Jason Dufner
5:10 p.m.: Jimmy Walker, Brandt Snedeker
5:20 p.m.: Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama
5:30 p.m.: Ryan Moore, Russell Knox
5:40 p.m.: Patrick Reed, Jason Day
5:50 p.m.: Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson