The aftermath of yet another subpar Masters in the viewership department has many in the golf mediasphere questioning whether the sport can sustain its already niche audience on the back of a decidedly milquetoast Scottie Scheffler. This year’s final round drew a meager 9.59 million viewers on CBS, down 20% from the Easter-boosted 2023 Masters, and the third time in four years the final round has failed to eclipse the 10-million mark. It’s unchartered territory for a property that didn’t slip into the seven-figure range a single time between the coronation of one Tiger Woods in 1997 and the pandemic-impacted autumn Masters of 2020.
Puck’s John Ourand suggests the consensus among executives for the lackluster viewership was the lack of drama down the stretch, rather than Scheffler’s sleepy personality. The trend, however, is undeniable when looking at the sport’s viewership this season. Golf has a viewership retention problem that can’t all be attributed to the buttoned-up nature of many of the sport’s current stars. It’s a reckoning that perhaps is long overdue, thanks in part to the work of Woods who has, in essence, put lipstick on a pig for the better part of 20 years. Woods took a sport that traditionally catered only to a limited subset of people and gave it broad appeal. Now, with his play on the decline, golf’s lack of innovation and foresight during Woods’ reign may take the sport back to pre-Woods levels of interest.
It has now been five full years since Tiger Woods capped off his improbable run to a fifth green jacket in 2019. Though the memory of Woods’ triumph is still fresh in the minds of golf fans, the win may have resulted in complacency among golf’s power brokers. The thought that an aging Woods could still compete with the young, analytically driven and distance-obsessed golfers of today perhaps lulled those very power brokers into a false sense of security; the thought that Woods could still be relied on to drive viewership and interest in the sport. The half-decade since Woods’ last green jacket has left little doubt that his once magnetizing ability to pull in eyeballs is fleeting.
In the 11 major championships Woods has played since his 2019 Masters win, he has not finished inside the top-20 a single time. Further, six of his 11 starts have resulted in either a missed cut or withdrawal. After a Masters where the 48-year old finished dead last among those that made the cut, and after suffering countless debilitating injuries, undergoing numerous invasive surgeries as a result, it’s overdue to put a stake in Woods’ ability to contend in major championships — no matter what he claims in his press conferences.
That creates a serious problem for golf as a television product. In terms of viewership, Tiger Woods remains the straw that stirs professional golf’s drink. After all, the first law of sports viewership is the Tiger-bump (challenged only recently by the Caitlin Clark-bump). Since Woods’ win in 1997, the 12 years in which he finished in the top-5 of the Masters averaged 14.89M viewers for the final round. In the 16 years where Woods finished outside the top-5 or did not play, final round viewership averaged just 11.83M — or 20% less than when Woods was in contention.
Even in 2024, the Woods-hosted Genesis Invitational at Riviera, in which Woods withdrew after the first round, is the second-most viewed non-major golf broadcast so far this year, garnering 3.25M viewers for its final round, behind only the final round of The Players Championship (3.53M). It’s the only regular season event Woods has played this year; one small data point, emblematic of golf’s larger viewership concerns.
Overall, the PGA Tour has seen year-over-year viewership decline in 10 of its 12 final round broadcast network windows so far this year. Certainly some of the poor results can be attributed to bad luck; weather cancelling the final round at Pebble Beach, Woods’ first round withdrawal at Riviera, etc. However, the diminished strength of field and overall disillusionment with the state of the sport as a result of LIV Golf has undoubtedly contributed to the lackluster ratings this year.
To state the obvious, there’s no replacement for Tiger Woods. Even in his noncompetitive state, Tiger moves the needle. But as the realization that Woods will likely never return to his prior form sets in for golf viewers, the allure of watching him play may shift closer to the feelings conjured up watching ceremonial players like Vijay Singh or José María Olazábal compete at the Masters. How much will Woods move the needle then?
For the greater part of this century the PGA Tour has coasted on the reliable ratings Woods has brought to the game. Now, with the entire sport in disarray, golf fans have turned apathetic. The fear among golf’s stakeholders is that the sport will turn into tennis — only relevant four times per year.
Further illuminating golf’s structural shortcomings of course, is the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, who’s pillaging of PGA Tour talent has left a diluted week-to-week product.
Last year as a response to LIV, the PGA Tour introduced a series of signature events, intended to bring the best golfers in the world together to compete in the same tournaments. The venture was modestly successful, with seven of the 10 regular season signature events finishing with viewership increases over 2022. Though as this year’s numbers indicate, those increases may not have been sustainable growth, rather a product of the outsized attention being placed on the sport during the contentious and highly publicized battle between the rival tours.
The PGA Tour’s signature event structure lacks legitimacy when so many of the world’s best golfers have defected to LIV. The timeline of a merger between the two entities has been unclear for months; though the entanglement of the two tours has accentuated issues that may not have been so readily apparent for the two decades of Woods’ domination. It wasn’t the sport of golf that attracted eyeballs of the casual fan, it was Woods and Woods alone.
Now, without a competitive Woods, golf has returned to being, well golf; a sport that’s not inherently interesting to the casual viewer. It’s a reality that makes it all the more ironic that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund chose golf of all sports to attempt a hostile takeover. The attractiveness of golf as a television property is rather limited sans-Woods, only further diminished through the sport’s fracture. Viewers aren’t leaving the PGA Tour for LIV — who struggles to scrape together more than a couple hundred thousand viewers for its tournaments. Viewers are just leaving televised golf, period.
Puck’s Ourand shares that golf viewership overall is down around 20% this year. As the PGA Tour and LIV grapple with reunification, the casual fan grows further disinterested in the product overall. Recently, they’ve traded their old connections with pro golfers on tour for the personalities taking off in a booming social media ecosystem for the sport. Is it a coincidence that YouTube channels like Bob Does Sports or Good Good have seen meteoric rises as the television product atrophies?
There may be no better example of the challenges presented by the so-called “attention economy” in sports than in golf. From a participatory standpoint, golf is more popular than ever after its pandemic-era growth spurt. With the influx of new players into the sport, it’s a wonder why more people aren’t tuning in to watch the pros. Maybe it’s more relatable to watch your favorite YouTuber hack it around for 18 holes in under an hour than it is to watch the stoicism-Olympics that is professional golf across a four hour commercial-packed television window. Moreover, the golf being played by the pros is foreign to the everyday player. A social media star shanking their ball into the water and throwing back a beverage or two with their buddies? That’s what casual players do every Saturday.
Which brings us back to Scottie Scheffler. The affable Texan asserting his dominance over the professional ranks. Is he really the one to blame for declining interest in the sport? At its highest levels, golf is a game that encourages an even-keel. Scheffler embodies that approach, and it has worked for him. He’s a professional golfer doing his job, and performing at a level higher than any of his peers at the moment. Is it fair to ask him to be somebody he’s not on top of that?
The sports media, broadly speaking, has a habit of inaugurating an heir apparent when it becomes clear that a superstar is in the twilight of their career. Michael Jordan to LeBron James. Serena Williams to Coco Gauff. Golf’s attempts to pass the torch have been futile. Jordan Spieth was next in the line of succession, until he wasn’t. Rory McIlroy is still an elite player with a large following, but hasn’t won a major in 10 years. It’s now Scheffler’s turn to take on the “next Tiger” burden. Unfortunately for golf fans, a “next Tiger” is not a birthright.
One year of declining ratings can be explained away, though the substandard viewership needs to be looked into with a keen sense of the broader forces impacting the game for those inside the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Ponte Vedra, FL. Golf’s power brokers must look at this season’s declining viewership, the fracturing of the sport, and Woods’ inevitable downturn as a wake-up call to get their collective act together. The sport is in a precarious place, stuck between niche status and mainstream breakthrough. It can no longer rely on Woods to cover for the lack of foresight from golf’s governing bodies. Reunification of the professional game will be the first step in regaining the attention of golf fans. The longer-term question however, is whether the sport can leverage its new crop of participants into fans of the professional game, without the help of a unicorn like Tiger Woods.
