ESPN+ Offering More Than 200 Combined Hours of Traditional Play, Featured Groups, Featured Holes Over All Four Days

ESPN+ Adds More Exclusive Featured Groups, Featured Holes; Practice Round Shows Return

Last year, in its return to live coverage of the PGA Championship for the first time in 30 years, ESPN joined with ESPN+ to bring golf fans more live play and viewing options for the historic tournament than it had ever had.

This year, in the second year of the network’s 11-year deal with the event, there will be even more live coverage – a 70 percent increase in live hours, surpassing last year’s mark as the most ever for the event – as the 103^rd PGA Championship is played May 20-23 at The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina.

With more than 229 hours of live play across ESPN and ESPN+ during the four days of the championship (up from 134 hours last year), fans will get traditional coverage as well as exclusive Featured Groups and Featured Hole presentations. In addition, ESPN’s signature news and information program SportsCenter will have reports from Kiawah for the entire week of the event.

ESPN, ESPN+ and CBS will combine to present comprehensive first tee to last putt coverage over all four days of competition.

Thursday and Friday

ESPN and ESPN+ will have 12 hours of live play each day from the first and second rounds of the championship on Thursday and Friday, May 20-21. As was the case last year, ESPN+ will open the coverage with the first tee shot both days at 7 a.m. ET, which had never been done for the event until last year, and continue to follow play with traditional coverage from 7 a.m. – 1 p.m. each day. Live play then shifts to ESPN from 1-7 p.m. both days.

Featured Group coverage on ESPN+, which is not available anywhere else, has been doubled on the two weekdays for this year with eight groups per day on Thursday and Friday (four in the morning and four in the afternoon). Featured Holes coverage has also been expanded to include all four days of the event as well as multiple holes. On Thursday and Friday, Holes 16-17-18 will be featured from 8:15 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday

ESPN and ESPN+ will offer golf fans five hours of live coverage from morning and early afternoon play on both Saturday and Sunday, May 22-23, as well as exclusive Featured Group and Featured Hole coverage all day both days.

On both days of the weekend, traditional coverage will stream live on ESPN+ from 8-10 a.m., with ESPN continuing the coverage from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Both Saturday and Sunday, ESPN+ will again offer exclusive Featured Group coverage throughout the day (four morning groups, two afternoon groups). Additionally, ESPN+ will bring live, exclusive Featured Holes coverage of Holes 15-16-17 on both weekend days. Start times for Featured Group and Featured Hole coverage will be dependent upon tee times and the cut size and will continue on ESPN+ until the end of play.

The 103^rd PGA Championship has live, first tee to final putt coverage for only the second time in its history, with CBS airing afternoon play Saturday and Sunday, while exclusive Featured Group and Featured Holes coverage continues streaming on ESPN+. ESPN returned to the PGA Championship last year for the first time in 30 years, having last aired the event in 1990.

Commentators and Analysts

Scott Van Pelt will anchor live play coverage on ESPN and ESPN+, joined in the 18^th tower for analysis by former world No. 1 David Duval. Hole announcers will be Sean McDonough, Curtis Strange, Bob Wischusen and Dave Flemming while Michael Eaves, Gene Wojciechowski and Marty Smith will conduct player interviews. On-course reporters will be Andy North, Billy Kratzert, Colt Knost, Suzy Whaley and John Maginnes. The CBS announce crew will call play for three hours each day on Thursday and Friday.

Featured Group feeds will be hosted by George Savaricas, Luke Elvy, Will Haskett, Dave Feldman and Peter Burns with analysts Scott Verplank, Mark Wilson, Mark Brooks and Stuart Appleby. On-course reporters for Featured Groups will be Ned Michaels, Gary Christian, Jane Crafter, Chantel McCabe, Chris Como and Michael Collins.

Announcers for the Featured Holes stream on ESPN+ will include Michael Eaves, Matt Barrie, Wischusen, Flemming, Kratzert, Maginnes and Wojciechowski.

ESPN+ Practice Round/Preview Programs Tuesday-Wednesday

ESPN+ will air Tuesday at the PGA Championship and Wednesday at the PGA Championship, a pair of three-hour live practice round/preview programs that will begin at noon ET each day. Michael Eaves will host the programs with analyst Curtis Strange as well as ESPN’s reporters, all on location at Kiawah. The programs will include coverage of select player news conferences as well as player interviews, live shots of player practice rounds and scenes from the driving range.

Player groupings for the PGA Championship will be revealed on Tuesday and will be announced during that day’s preview show on ESPN+ as well as on SportsCenter.

SportsCenter

SportsCenter will have reports from the PGA Championship for nine days beginning Sunday, May 16, and continuing through the conclusion of the tournament. Michael Eaves, Matt Barrie, Sage Steele and Scott Van Pelt will anchor the reports, joined by ESPN golf analysts and reporters including North, Strange, Collins, Wojciechowski, Smith and Bob Harig from Kiawah.

During live play on Thursday and Friday morning, Steele and Barrie, the regular anchors of the noon ET edition of SportsCenter, will host live reports from the PGA Championship on SportsCenter every half hour between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. They will be joined by guest analyst Suzy Whaley, former President of the PGA of America.

Additional PGA Championship Coverage on ESPN Platforms

ESPN.com will have exclusive news, columns and analysis from writers Bob Harig, Michael Collins and Nick Pietruszkiewicz before, during and after the PGA Championship.

The ESPN morning program Get Up! (weekday mornings, 8-10 a.m. on ESPN) will have live interviews with ESPN analysts and reporters from the PGA Championship during the week of the event.

ESPN Radio programs will have live interviews from the PGA Championship with ESPN’s golf analysts and reporters during the week. Also, the The SVPod, a weekly podcast hosted by ESPN SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt and “Stanford” Steve Coughlin, will have PGA Championship content the week of the event as will Marty Smith’s America The Podcast. Both podcasts are produced by ESPN Audio.

The ESPN+ program America’s Caddie, hosted by Michael Collins, will have a preview of the PGA Championship in the new episode that begins streaming the week of the event. Collins plays a few holes with last year’s PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, catches up with NFL Pro Bowl QB Patrick Mahomes at the driving range, where Mahomes discusses his love for the game of golf. The episode also includes an animated segment on how the great Walter Hagen almost lost the PGA Championship’s Wanamaker Trophy.

Collins also will host a half-hour PGA Championship preview show on ESPN social media channels on Thursday, May 20, at 12:30 p.m. Airing on ESPN’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels, the program will include analysis, interviews with guests and interaction with fans on social media.

ESPN International Coverage – Latin America and Caribbean

ESPN’s coverage of the PGA Championship will be available to 50 countries and fans can watch wall-to-wall coverage on ESPN’ television, online, mobile and broadband platforms.

• In Latin America and the Caribbean, ESPN will be broadcasting more than 25 hours of live coverage of the PGA Championship on its linear channels across the region in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
• Digitally, ESPN Play – ESPN’s broadband channel in Spanish-speaking Latin America and the Caribbean – and WatchESPN in Brazil, will stream network simulcast coverage of the PGA Championship.
• In addition, ESPN Play and Watch ESPN will also provide hundreds of hours of exclusive LIVE coverage of Featured Groups and Featured Holes for all four rounds of the event.

PGA Coaching Live

New this year for ESPN+ at the PGA Championship will be PGA Coaching Live, a stream that will operate Tuesday-Friday, May 18-21, for four hours each day from the player’s driving range and give golf fans a special inside look at the way PGA Coaches drive success on and off the course. Hosted by PGA Professional Steve Scott, Melanie Collins and Scott Walker, PGA Coaching Live will feature the talents of PGA Members and help connect consumers to one of the nearly 28,000 PGA Professionals near them. The content will focus on PGA Coaches who are the driving force behind the world’s best players, as well as those at the grassroots level. National Award-winning PGA Members Mark Blackburn, Joanna Coe, Joe Hallett and Rich Jones, along with defending champion Collin Morikawa’s PGA coach Rick Sessinghaus, will guide golfers on everything from basic techniques to advanced playing tips in this first-of-its-kind digital programming.

103rd PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort – South Carolina

 (All times Eastern)

(Tentative schedule – subject to change. Saturday/Sunday start times dependent upon tee times and cut size)

About ESPN+

ESPN+ is the industry-leading sports streaming service that offers fans in the U.S. thousands of live sports events, original programming not available on ESPN’s linear TV or digital networks and exclusive editorial content from dozens of ESPN writers and reporters. Launched in April 2018, ESPN+ has grown to more than 12.1 million subscribers.

Fans sign up to ESPN+ for just $5.99 a month (or $59.99 per year) at ESPN.com, ESPNplus.com or on the ESPN App (mobile and connected devices). It is also available as part of The Disney Bundle that gives subscribers access to Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu for $13.99/month (Hulu w/ads) or $19.99/month (Hulu w/o ads).

(Image courtesy of PGA of America)

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