Austin Championship Round 1 Is Under Way at Barton Creek: Smotherman Chases a Third Fall Win, With Golf Channel Coverage at 1 P.M. Central
The PGA Tour's return to Austin opened Thursday morning on the Fazio Canyons Course at Omni Barton Creek. Austin Smotherman — a winner in two of his last three starts — tees off at 12:13 p.m. Central alongside Jackson Koivun and former Longhorn Tommy Morrison.
The Austin Championship kicked off Thursday morning at Omni Barton Creek, the PGA Tour's first event in Austin since the 2023 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. The inaugural tournament, played Nov. 12–15 on the Fazio Canyons Course, is the second-to-last event of the FedEx Cup Fall schedule and carries a $6 million purse, Golfweek reported. The field has a distinct Texas flavor, highlighted by five former University of Texas players: Pierceson Coody, Doug Ghim, Christiaan Maas and Tommy Morrison are in the field, while Beau Hossler withdrew, according to Golfweek.
The headliner is the other Austin in the field. Austin Smotherman, 32, had an up-and-down regular season, but once the schedule flipped to the FedEx Cup Fall he broke through in a big way: he captured his first PGA Tour victory at the Bank of Utah Championship in early October and, in his next start weeks later at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, won again, GOLF.com reported. Now the two-time winner is teeing it up in Austin to go for his third win in just over a month.
Smotherman's group — with Jackson Koivun, the 3M Open champion, and Morrison — tees off the first tee at 1:13 p.m. Eastern, which is 12:13 p.m. Central. The morning wave off the tenth tee included Blades Brown, Andrew Novak and Max Homa at 8:33 a.m. Eastern (7:33 a.m. Central), and Maas went off the first tee at 9:39 a.m. Eastern with Zecheng Dou and Adrien Saddier, according to the Round 1 tee times published by GOLF.com.
For fans watching from home, Golf Channel provides first-round coverage from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern — 1 to 4 p.m. Central — while PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ carries featured-group streaming from 8 a.m. Eastern, and Golfchannel.com and the Golf Channel app stream a simulcast of the television coverage, GOLF.com reported. Round 1 was still in its morning wave as this file was staged; the desk will file the day's scoring in the evening cycles.
