{"id":387777,"date":"2026-04-08T08:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/387777\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T08:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:28:07","slug":"rory-mcilroy-given-prime-mid-morning-start-for-title-defence-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/387777\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy given prime mid-morning start for title defence \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Masters champion Rory McIlroy<\/a> has been given a prime mid-morning start time for the defence of his green jacket at Augusta.<\/p>\n

The Northern Irishman, who completed the career Grand Slam with an emotional playoff victory over Justin Rose 12 months ago, will go out at 10.31am local time (3.31pm Irish time) with Players champion Cameron Young and 2025 US Amateur winner Mason Howell.<\/p>\n

McIlroy is seeking to become only the fourth man \u2013 and first in 24 years \u2013 after Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo \u2013 to win back-to-back Masters titles.<\/p>\n

Ahead of him at 10.07am (3.07pm) are in-form duo Bryson DeChambeau and Matt Fitzpatrick and two-time Major winner Xander Schauffele.<\/p>\n

The 2023 champion Jon Rahm is out with Ryder Cup team-mate Ludvig Aberg, who has finished second and seventh in his two Masters so far, and Chris Gotterup, a two-time PGA Tour winner this year at 1.08pm (6.08pm).<\/p>\n

World number one Scottie Scheffler, who has won the Masters twice in the last four years, goes off at 1.44pm (6.44pm) with Scotland\u2019s Robert MacIntyre and recent Texas Children\u2019s Houston Open winner Gary Woodland.<\/p>\n

Shane Lowry<\/a> will be the first Irish golfer in action when he tees off at 9.43am (2.43pm), alongside Dustin Johnson and Jason Day.<\/p>\n

Making his Masters debut, Tom McKibbin<\/a> will be joined by Andrew Novak at Brian Campbell, teeing off in the first round at 11.15am (4.15pm)<\/p>\n

The event begins at 7.25am (12.25pm) with honorary starters Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson, who have a combined 11 green jackets between them over 140 combined appearances, teeing off at the first.<\/p>\n

John Keefer and Haotong Li get the tournament proper under way at 7.40am (12.40pm) as a two-ball in a 91-man field.<\/p>\n

Tee-times for opening two rounds of US Masters (US unless stated, all times Irish, second round tee-times in brackets, *denotes amateur)<\/p>\n

12.40pm (3.51pm) John Keefer, Haotong Li (Chi)<\/p>\n

12.50pm (4.03pm) Naoyuki Kataoka (Jpn), Max Homa, Carlos Ortiz (Mex)<\/p>\n

1.02pm (4.15pm) Jose Maria Olazabal (Esp), Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (Den), Aldrich Potgieter (SA)<\/p>\n

1.14pm (4.27pm) Angel Cabrera (Arg), Sami Valimaki (Fin)*, Jackson Herrington<\/p>\n

1.26pm (4.39pm) Charl Schwartzel (SA), Max Greyserman, Ryan Fox (NZ)<\/p>\n

1.38pm (4.51pm) Vijay Singh (Fiji), Matt McCarty, Rasmus Hojgaard (Den)<\/p>\n

1.50pm (5.04pm) Kurt Kitayama, Kristoffer Reitan (Nor), Casey Jarvis (SA)<\/p>\n

2.02pm (5.15pm) Bubba Watson, Nicolas Echavarria (Col), Brandon Holtz*<\/p>\n

2.19pm (5.32pm) Cameron Smith (Aus), Sam Burns, Jake Knapp<\/p>\n

2.31pm (5.44pm) Keegan Bradley, Ryan Gerard, Nick Taylor (Can)<\/p>\n

2.43pm (5.56pm) Dustin Johnson, Shane Lowry (Ire), Jason Day (Aus)<\/p>\n

2.55pm (6.08pm) Patrick Reed, Tommy Fleetwood (Eng), Akshay Bhatia<\/p>\n

3.07pm (6.20pm) Bryson DeChambeau, Matt Fitzpatrick (Eng), Xander Schauffele<\/p>\n

3.19pm (6.32pm) Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn), Collin Morikawa, Russell Henley<\/p>\n

3.31pm (6.44pm) Rory McIlroy (N Ire), Cameron Young, Mason Howell*<\/p>\n

3.43pm (6.56pm) Viktor Hovland (Nor), Patrick Cantlay, Alex Noren (Swe)<\/p>\n

4.03pm (12.40pm) Samuel Stevens, Sungjae Im (Kor)<\/p>\n

4.15pm (12.50pm) Andrew Novak, Tom McKibbin (N Ire), Brian Campbell<\/p>\n

4.27pm (1.02pm) Mike Weir (Can), Wyndham Clark, Mateo Pulcini (Arg)*<\/p>\n

4.39pm (1.14pm) Zach Johnson, Michael Kim, Nicolai Hojgaard (Den)<\/p>\n

4.51pm (1.26pm) Danny Willett (Eng), Davis Riley, Ethan Fang*<\/p>\n

5.03pm (1.38pm) Adam Scott (Aus), Daniel Berger, Brian Harman<\/p>\n

5.15pm (1.50pm) Fred Couples, Min Woo Lee (Aus), Fifa Laopakdee (Tha)*<\/p>\n

5.27pm (2.02pm) Sergio Garcia (Esp), Aaron Rai (Eng), Jacob Bridgeman<\/p>\n

5.44pm (2.19pm) Harry Hall (Eng), Corey Conners (Can), Michael Brennan<\/p>\n

5.56pm (2.31pm) JJ Spaun, Maverick McNealy, Tyrrell Hatton (Eng)<\/p>\n

6.08pm (2.43pm) Jon Rahm (Esp), Chris Gotterup, Ludvig Aberg (Swe)<\/p>\n

6.20pm (2.55pm) Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose (Eng), Brooks Koepka<\/p>\n

6.32pm (3.07pm) Sepp Straka (Aut), Ben Griffin, Justin Thomas<\/p>\n

6.44pm (3.19pm) Scottie Scheffler, Robert MacIntyre (Sco), Gary Woodland<\/p>\n

6.56pm (3.31pm) Harris English, Marco Penge (Eng), Woo Kim (Kor)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Masters champion Rory McIlroy has been given a prime mid-morning start time for the defence of his green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,99440,1394,1395,112,3475],"class_list":{"0":"post-387777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-masters","11":"tag-rory-mcilroy","12":"tag-shane-lowry","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tom-mckibbin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}