WGC Cadillac Championship 2015: Tee times, pairings for Thursday's round at Doral

Rory McIlroy rolls into the first WGC event of the year off a missed cut, but the world No. 1 is still the favorite to win against the deepest field so far this season.

The Masters rapidly approaches and this week's PGA Tour stop is probably the best event to most closely approximate the talent at Augusta. Technically, the WGC-Cadillac Championship is deeper than the group that will play the season's first major. Both feature smaller, exclusive fields, but this week is the first time that the entire top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings have played at the same tournament since the 2012 PGA Championship.

It's hard to really pick out featured groups when there's so many heavy hitters here, but the headliner is obviously world No. 1 Rory McIlroy. He won the last WGC event he played in back in August at Firestone, but is coming off a missed cut at the Honda Classic last week. It was a tiny blow for Rory, who opened the year with a win and a second place result over on the Euro Tour. The two-day stay at the Honda is likely nothing more than a blip in the trend of McIlroy staying as the game's most dominant player, and he's the favorite again this week at Doral.

McIlroy will start his week alongside Bubba Watson and Henrik Stenson at 11:33 a.m. ET on the 10th tee. Those are the top three players in the world rankings, and most of the tee sheet follows from there according to the current OWGR. Of course, McIlroy is a clear No. 1 right now and the distance down to No. 2 Bubba is a long way.

How far ahead is @McIlroyRory in the world rankings? http://ift.tt/1A1hpXj

— Jamie Kennedy (@jamierkennedy) February 23, 2015

Aside from Rory's group, maybe the most intriguing threesome is the Jordan Spieth-Justin Rose-Sergio Garcia group. Those are three world-class ball strikers who will all be in the mix on at least one major championship leaderboard this season. They're right after the McIlroy group at 11:44 a.m. ET

The WGC events offer the Tour a ton of flexibility when it comes to scheduling. It's a small, exclusive field of just 71 players (Tiger Woods, even if he were healthy, would not have qualified based on his world ranking). There is no cut and there is no need for a morning and afternoon wave to try and squeeze 140 to 150 players through the same 18-hole course in one day. Instead, the Tour opts to send them off in groups of three from split tees so the entire field is on the course at the same time. That will change on the weekend, when there should be rolling twosomes like most normal Saturdays and Sundays on Tour.

With the entire field condensed into a two-hour window, Golf Channel will have their pick of stars to show for their afternoon broadcast. They're set to come on the air at 1 p.m. and carry coverage until 6 p.m. or the conclusion of the round.

Typically, the pace of play is quick at the WGC events. The past few years at Firestone, which is the other WGC stroke play tourney in the States, many rounds came in under four hours, which is extremely quick for the Tour. Doral's redesigned Blue Monster course under architect Gil Hanse punished the players last year, but that was largely due to some windy conditions and nearly brand new greens that were almost unfairly hard. Those have likely settled and the course shouldn't be as difficult, hopefully alleviating the pace of play. Expect to see at least the back nine of Rory's round.

Here's the full tee sheet for the opening round:

Off No. 1 tee:

Tee Time	Players
11:00 AM	Russell Henley	Alexander Levy	Branden Grace
11:11 AM	Hunter Mahan	Stephen Gallacher	Mikko Ilonen
11:22 AM	Brendon Todd	Gary Stal	Koumei Oda
11:33 AM	Kevin Na	Thomas Bjorn	Danie van Tonder
11:44 AM	John Senden	Ryan Moore	Alexander Noren
11:55 AM	Ryan Palmer	Steven Jeffress	Geoff Ogilvy
12:06 PM	Marcel Siem	Sang-Moon Bae	Charley Hoffman
12:17 PM	Chris Kirk	Jamie Donaldson	Zach Johnson
12:28 PM	Dustin Johnson	Victor Dubuisson	Billy Horschel
12:39 PM	Jason Day	Adam Scott	Jim Furyk
12:50 PM	Martin Kaymer	Rickie Fowler	Matt Kuchar
1:01 PM	Keegan Bradley	Ian Poulter	Charl Schwartzel

Off No. 10 tee:

Tee Time	Players
11:00 AM	Ross Fisher	Gary Woodland	Paul Casey
11:11 AM	Brooks Koepka	Phil Mickelson	Graeme McDowell
11:22 AM	Jimmy Walker	Hideki Matsuyama	Patrick Reed
11:33 AM	Rory McIlroy	Bubba Watson	Henrik Stenson
11:44 AM	Sergio Garcia	Justin Rose	Jordan Spieth
11:55 AM	Brandt Snedeker	Luke Donald	Bill Haas
12:06 PM	Joost Luiten	Thongchai Jaidee	J.B. Holmes
12:17 PM	Bernd Wiesberger	Tommy Fleetwood
12:28 PM	Danny Willett	Robert Streb	Shane Lowry
12:39 PM	Hiroyuki Fujita	Anirban Lahiri	Webb Simpson
12:50 PM	Greg Chalmers	Marc Warren	Cameron Tringale
1:01 PM	Lee Westwood	Louis Oosthuizen	Jason Dufner
1:12 PM	David Lipsky	Thomas Aiken	Morgan Hoffmann

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