Tee times and groups have been announced for golf at the 2016 Rio Olympics and there are some good ones that have been set. The field is not necessarily a strong one (as you can see below), but there are still some solid groups on Thursday and Friday for Round 1 and 2 as the men's golf competition gets going.
The SoF for the #OlympicGolf men's event in #Rio2016 drops to just 46 points to the winner. Same as Irish, Scottish or Canadian Open. #OWGR
— Nosferatu (@VC606) August 8, 2016
There will also be a nice nod to the home country as golf gets kicked off this year.
At 7:30 a.m. local time on Thursday 11th August, history will be made when Brazilian, Adilson da Silva, hits the opening tee shot and golf's return to the Olympic Games will be complete.
Here are the groups (all times Eastern)
| Round 1 | Round 2 | Players |
| 8:30 a.m. | 10:25 a.m. | Adilson da Silva, Graham DeLaet, Byeong-Hun An |
| 8:41 a.m. | 10:36 a.m. | Padraig Harrington, Matteo Manassero, Danny Lee |
| 8:52 a.m | 10:47 a.m. | Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Gavin Green, Thomas Pieters |
| 9:03 a.m. | 11:03 a.m. | Julien Quesne, Marcus Fraser, Shingo Katayama |
| 9:14 a.m. | 11:14 a.m. | Nicolas Colsaerts, Jeunghun Wang, Espen Kofstad |
| 9:25 a.m. | 11:25 a.m. | Felipe Aguilar, Danny Chia, Soren Kjeldsen |
| 9:41 a.m. | 11:36 a.m. | Fabian Gomez, David Lingmerth, Jose Felipe Lima |
| 9:52 a.m. | 11:47 a.m. | Rodolfo Cazaubon, Bernd Wiesberger, Brandon Stone |
| 10:03 a.m. | 11:58 a.m. | Danny Willett, Matt Kuchar, Haotong Li |
| 10:14 a.m. | 12:09 p.m. | Bubba Watson, Martin Kaymer, Anirban Lahiri |
| 10:25 a.m. | 8:30 a.m. | Jaco van Zyl, Mikko Ilonen, David Hearn |
| 10:36 a.m. | 8:41 a.m. | Fabrizio Zanotti, C.T. Pan, Gregory Bourdy |
| 10:47 a.m. | 8:52 a.m. | Yuta Ikeda, Roope Kakko, Miguel Tabuena |
| 11:03 a.m. | 9:03 a.m. | Ashun Wu, Nino Bertasio, Scott Hend |
| 11:14 a.m. | 9:14 a.m. | Joost Luiten, Ricardo Gouveia, Siddikur Rahman |
| 11:25 a.m. | 9:25 a.m. | Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed, Emiliano Grillo |
| 11:36 a.m. | 9:41 a.m. | Thorbjorn Olesen, Alex Cejka, Ryan Fox |
| 11:47 a.m. | 9:52 a.m. | S.S.P. Chawrasia, Seamus Power, Wen-Tang Lin |
| 11:58 a.m. | 10:03 a.m. | Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, Jhonattan Vegas |
| 12:09 p.m. | 10:14 a.m. | Henrik Stenson, Thongchai Jaidee, Rafael Cabrera-Bello |
The best groups are Willett-Kuchar-Li, Watson-Kaymer-Lahiri, Garcia-Reed-Grillo and Fowler-Rose-Vegas, and it's not even that close really.
There are a lot of players nobody (including me) has ever heard of, which will be a problem when it comes to viewership. But my inkling is that with that gold medal on the line late in the weekend, nobody will have any issues getting into the drama. As we saw on Sunday, golf always wins out in the end.
