PGA Tour golf fans will have to adjust their body clocks this week.
For the fourth year in a row, the Farmers Insurance Open will begin on Wednesday at the Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif. That means the cut will be made at the end of play on Thursday and the final round will be on Saturday.
The reason again is the Goliath of televised sports, the NFL.
CBS airs the AFC championship game on Sunday between Kansas City and Buffalo at 6:30 p.m., with the pregame show starting at 6 p.m. With the NFC game between Philadelphia and Washington at 3 p.m. on FOX, a PGA Tour event — or any sport, for that matter — would draw miniscule ratings.
What are the Farmers Insurance TV times?
That’s why the Tour has worked with CBS since 2022 to start the Farmers Insurance a day early. Golf Channel will air the first two rounds from 3-7 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday and CBS will air the third round from 5-8 p.m. on Friday and the final round from 4-8 p.m. on Saturday.
CBS golf anchor Jim Nantz will be calling the Farmers Insurance third and fourth rounds remotely from Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. He and Tony Romo are the CBS announcing team for the Chiefs-Bills game.
Golf Channel has early coverage of the third round from 3-5 p.m. and the final round from 2-4 p.m.
What’s on opposite the Farmers final round?
The Saturday time slot should result in decent ratings for CBS. The Tour will be competing with the NBA on ABC (Denver vs. Minnesota at 3 p.m.; Boston vs. Dallas at 5:30 p.m.), college basketball (New Mexico vs. UNLV on FOX, and a doubleheader on ESPN with Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt at 2:30 p.m. and Duke vs. Wake Forest at 4:30 p.m.); and figure staking and horse racing on NBC.
CBS has traditionally begun its golf coverage at Torrey Pines and aired the remaining California events until the Florida Swing starts at the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, when NBC airs those four events in February and March, including The Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course March 13-16.
The only hardship is on Tour players competing in last week’s American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open. They get one less practice day but the travel time is minimal, with the two courses 129 miles apart.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: NFL conference championship games pushes PGA Tour event a day earlier
