The 2026 Players Championship begins on Thursday, March 12, with the opening round at TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. You can find the complete Players Championship schedules for Thursday’s first round at the bottom of this post.
Separate training time for round 1
With two months to go until the 2026 PGA Tour season begins, we’ve now reached the first truly major tournament of the year: The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Players have the strongest field throughout the season, with only the Tour’s top pros eligible to play.
It also features the biggest prize purse of the year at $25 million.
World number 1 Scottie Schefflertwo-time winner of The Players Championship, is the betting favorite by a wide margin this week. He lifted the trophy at TPC Sawgrass in 2023 and 2024. Scheffler already has one win on the season and is looking to find his best form ahead of next month’s Masters.
Rory McIlroy’s the status for the players is more of a mystery. The defending players champion withdrew from the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a back injury and injury delayed his arrival at the Players.
Scheffler will begin his opening round Thursday at 8:52 a.m. ET along with playing partners Tommy Fleetwood AND Justin Thomas.
You can watch Thursday’s first round of the 2026 Players Championship from 1-7pm ET on Golf Channel. PGA Tour live on ESPN+ will offer exclusive early broadcast coverage beginning Thursday at 7:30 a.m. ET, in addition to coverage of featured sets and holes.
See the full first round matches and pairings for The Players Championship.
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The Players Championship 2026 match times for Thursday: Round 1 (ET)
Tea no. 1
7:40 – Mark Hubbard, Thorbjørn Olesen, Mac Meissner
07:52 – Bud Cauley, Vince Whaley, Chandler Phillips
08:04 – Emiliano Grillo, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Max Grayserman
08:16 – Kevin Yu, Cam Davis, Gary Woodland
08:28 – Ricky Castillo, Ryan Gerard, Patrick Cantlay
08:40 – Adam Schenk, Garrick Higgo, Matt McCarty
08:52 – Brian Harman, Maverick McNealy, Davis Riley
09:04 – Sami Valimaki, Lucas Glover, Matt Fitzpatrick
09:16 – Michael Brennan, Harris English, JT Poston
9:28 – Haotong Li, Zecheng Dou, Jordan Smith
12:30pm – Lee Hodges, Andrew Putnam, Sam Stevens
12:42pm – Erik van Rooyen, Keith Mitchell, Michael Kim
12:54pm – Taylor Moore, Joel Dahmen, Ryo Hisatsune
1:06pm – Jacob Bridgeman, Ben Griffin, Adam Scott
13:18 – JJ Spaun, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry
1:30pm – Sahith Theegala, Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth
1:42pm – Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama
1:54pm – Chris Gotterup, Justin Rose, Min Woo Lee
2:06 pm – Brian Campbell, Karl Vilips, Aaron Rai
14:18 – Matti Schmid, Max McGreevy, Takumi Kanaya
2:30pm – Zach Bauchou, Sudarshan Yellamaraju, AJ Ewart
