About a year ago, the golf ratings discourse was spiraling out of control. The undisputed best player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, was a ratings dud. The affable yet decidedly milquetoast Texan was dominating the sport, but couldn’t draw the requisite eyeballs.
The only golfer since Tiger Woods’ prime to meet the big cat’s marks from a statistical standpoint wasn’t delivering the same type of excitement for the fans.
Woods, of course, was one-of-one. But the closest thing the golf world had seen to Woods’ professional pinnacle was happening before our eyes, and no one outside of dedicated golf fans seemed to care. The jury was out, and it was clear: people don’t care about Scottie Scheffler.
That is, until this year.
The reigning PGA Championship winner has kept up his dominance on the course, and his winning ways seem to have finally translated into something of a viewership draw.
PGA Tour viewership overall this season has been strong, and Scheffler seems to be one reason why.
This year, Scheffler has played in ten PGA Tour events. Five of those he’s either won outright, or was in contention during the final day of play (as measured by a top-five finish). Every single one of those tournaments have seen a year-over-year increase in viewership during the final round.
Starting with The Genesis Invitational in February, final round viewership increased by 5% year-over-year from 3.2 million viewers to 3.4 million viewers. Scheffler finished tied for third, with young phenom Ludvig Aberg taking the win.
Next, March’s Houston Open jumped up by a staggering 41% during Scheffler’s second-place finish in which he fell one stroke short of winner Min Woo Lee. The final round averaged 2.8 million viewers on NBC, up from 1.86 million viewers last season.
In May, Scheffler won the CJ Cup, and it, too, saw a significant bump in viewership. Despite Scheffler blowing away the field and winning by eight strokes in a Tiger-esque performance, viewership for the CJ Cup’s final round increased by 66% on CBS, drawing 2.92 million viewers on Sunday.
Later that month, Scheffler notched another top-five finish one week after winning the PGA Championship. Scottie finished tied for fourth, four strokes off the lead, and the audience ticked up by just 1% (2.11 million viewers). Out of Scheffler’s five PGA Tour events in contention this season, he was the least involved in this finish.
Finally, last Sunday, Scheffler secured his second non-major victory of the year, winning the Memorial Tournament by four strokes over Ben Griffin. Even though the result was rarely in question on Sunday, and the leaderboard was far from stacked with other superstars, Scheffler’s win drew 3.06 million viewers, up 7% versus the prior year.
That’s five data points, all indicating that Scottie Scheffler has grown into a figure that golf fans will tune in for. If you’re the PGA Tour, out of all the positive ratings data that’s come out of this season so far, this particular statistic has to be the most encouraging.
Scheffler shows no signs of letting up. Statistically, he’s far and away the best golfer in the world. Since last year’s Masters, Scheffler has won more tournaments (10) than tournaments he’s finished outside of the top-ten (5). That’s insanely consistent. Scheffler is rarely ever out of contention in a tournament.
That means he’s a fixture on the PGA Tour’s leaderboards almost every Sunday. And clearly, seeing his name on the scorebug is something that is keeping viewers tuned in. So long as Scheffler can keep up his level of play, the PGA Tour seems to have found itself a reliable viewership draw for the future.
