Who to watch: Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy among featured pairings for FedEx St. Jude Championship coverage on ESPN

The top two players in the world will take center stage Thursday when the FedEx St. Jude Championship airs on ESPN’s primary linear channel for the first time.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are paired together for the first two rounds at TPC Southwind and are set to play during ESPN’s Thursday morning broadcast window.

The efforts are part of ESPN’s expanded coverage of the FedExCup Playoffs, providing 12 total hours of playoff action to a broader audience, in addition to more than 100 hours of coverage on PGA TOUR LIVE on the ESPN App.

In addition to Scheffler and McIlroy, Thursday ESPN coverage will also include two other marquee pairings: Tommy Fleetwood and Jordan Spieth and Tom Kim and Ludvig Åberg.

Friday’s ESPN coverage will feature Wyndham Clark playing with Matt Fitzpatrick, Michael Brennan and Justin Rose, plus Chris Gotterup and Min Woo Lee.

First- and second-round play from marquee groups in Memphis will air on ESPN from 9-11 a.m. ET. ESPN will also air first- and second-round play at the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship.

ESPN linear coverage windows (12 total hours):

• FedEx St. Jude Championship (Aug. 13-14): 9-11 a.m. ET
• BMW Championship (Aug. 20-21): 10 a.m.-noon ET
• TOUR Championship (Aug. 27–28): 11 a.m.-1 p.m. ET

Golf Channel will continue its regular coverage of the FedExCup Playoffs. The following groups will be prominently featured during Golf Channel’s Thursday coverage: Cameron Young and Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Sam Burns, and Ryan Fox and Adam Scott. On Friday afternoon, Hideki Matsuyama and Viktor Hovland, Justin Thomas and Si Woo Kim and Russell Henley and Rickie Fowler will headline Golf Channel.

Complementing ESPN’s linear windows, PGA TOUR LIVE on the ESPN App will continue to provide full-day coverage during all four rounds of each FedExCup Playoffs event, with more than 100 hours scheduled across multiple concurrent streams – including marquee groups, featured groups, key holes and Betcast feeds – from the first tee shot of the day through the completion of play.

ESPN last carried live coverage of the TOUR Championship in 2006, the year prior to the inception of the FedExCup Playoffs. The expanded coverage will be supported across ESPN’s studio show lineup, including "SportsCenter," "Get Up" and "The Pat McAfee Show."