Why Did Biltmore Championship Asheville Change Saturday Tee Times?

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Why did the Biltmore Championship Asheville change Saturday tee times? Here’s what prompted the schedule adjustment and when Round 3 will begin.

The PGA Tour moved up Saturday’s third-round tee times at the Biltmore Championship Asheville, sending the earliest groups off before 8 a.m. to beat a wall of storms rolling into western North Carolina.

Third-round tee times ordinarily wouldn’t start until midmorning at the earliest. Instead, the field tees off in threesomes off Nos. 1 and 10 from roughly 7:45 to 10 a.m. ET, according to PGA Tour Communications. That leaves Neal Shipley’s four-shot lead facing a compressed sprint before the North Carolina sky opens up.

The Tour’s broadcast schedule shifted with it. CNBC picks up coverage from noon to 12:30 p.m., Golf Channel takes over from 12:30 to 3 p.m., and SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., all Eastern time, PGA Tour Communications’ graphic shows. The World Feed streams the entire window, noon to 3 p.m., for viewers outside the U.S. broadcast footprint.

Neal Shipley’s Bogey-Free Run

Shipley has yet to make a bogey through 36 holes at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove, following an opening 65 with a career-low 62 on Friday that included an eagle on the par-5 third, according to Golf Channel. He sits at 15-under.

Ricky Castillo shot his own 62 Friday and trails at 11-under. Eric Cole, Ben Kohles and Max Greyserman are bunched at 10-under, with Cole and Greyserman having shared the tournament’s Round 1 lead before Friday’s surge, according to Fox Sports. A five-man group at 9-under includes Jacob Bridgeman, Pontus Nyholm, Seamus Power, Jackson Suber and Chris Kirk.

The low scores follow a week of preferred lies across all four rounds, a rare Tour accommodation ordered after heavy rain and intense heat left the course’s turf in rough shape heading into the inaugural event, according to Golf Channel. The Cliffs at Walnut Cove is hosting Asheville’s first PGA Tour stop since 1942, the first of eight events in the Tour’s FedExCup Fall series, with a $5 million purse and $900,000 waiting for the winner.

Storms Threaten Both Biltmore Championship Asheville Rounds This Weekend

Saturday brings a warm, humid day with a high near 80 degrees and light winds out of the northeast, but the afternoon carries a roughly 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, according to WeatherBug’s Asheville forecast. Morning conditions should stay calm enough for early tee times to get through largely uninterrupted.

Sunday looks rougher. The final round carries a high around 82 degrees with a 90 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon, the same forecast shows, with lows dropping into the mid-60s overnight.

The early Saturday start should let Shipley and the rest of the field finish 18 holes before the worst of the afternoon storms arrive, avoiding a repeat of the delays that have already reshaped this week’s schedule. Soft turf and preferred lies have produced a run of low numbers, and more rain would likely keep the course receptive if the leaders can stay ahead of the weather.

Sunday’s storm odds are steeper, raising the chance the final round gets an early start of its own or turns into a stop-and-go affair. Whoever leaves Saturday with the tournament lead gets a scheduling edge — the closer to the front of the pairings, the better the odds of finishing clean before the sky turns on them again.

That edge could matter most for Shipley. A four-shot cushion with 18 holes left is comfortable on a normal Sunday. It looks different with thunderstorms in the forecast and a leaderboard already producing 62s all week.

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