Here’s Why The 2023 Ryder Cup Start Times Are So Obnoxiously Early Even Accounting For Time Zones

The 2023 Ryder Cup gets underway on Friday from Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in Rome.

But if you want to watch it in the United States, specifically on the east coast, you’d better bet quite the night owl.

The pairings for Friday’s first foursomes sessions came out midday on Thursday in the US.

That’s because the tournament actually gets underway at 1:35 a.m. ET when Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns team up to take on Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton.

Each subsequent match tees off at 15 minute intervals (so 1:50, 2:05 and 2:20).

Now, the obvious answer here is time zones. Rome is six hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone, so the first match tees off at 7:35 a.m. locally and the final match goes off at 8:20.

But even that doesn’t seem to add up.

The four ball session, which is the second and final session of the day, begins at 6:25 a.m. ET and 12:25 p.m. locally. That means the final four ball group will tee off at 1:10 p.m. locally.

The final four ball session at Whistling Straits (in Kohler, Wisconsin) in 2021 went off at 2:14 p.m. locally.

Estimated sunset for Sunday in Rome is not until 6:56 p.m.

That gives the final four ball group around five hours and 45 minutes to finish up their play. Which seems like more than enough when you factor in concessions and the fact that the match may end before 18 holes.

So, what gives?

Well, John Huggan of Golf Digest reports that the tournament is preparing for incredible amounts of slow play.

“At this Ryder Cup, the ‘timing schedule’ established by the tournament committee allows the players to take four hours and 13 minutes to complete a foursomes match, one hour more to finish up a four-ball contest and four hours and four minutes to get round 18 holes in Sunday’s singles,” Huggan writes.

It seems unlikely that darkness will come in to play on any of the three days. And viewers in the US were already going to have a tough time with time zone difference.

But the early team times for both foursomes and four balls truly make it difficult as a fan in the US.