Good news first.
The latest golf television figures are online grand. Like, significantly bigger than expected, big. The 2026 American Express, won by Scottie Scheffler in his first start of the new year? That averaged 515,000 viewers on Golf Channel this weekend – up more than 125 percent from 2025, including a 281 percent increase during Saturday’s third round (which thankfully wasn’t forced to compete with the AFC and NFC Championship games).
The 2026 Farmers Insurance Open won by Justin Rose in a blowout? That was average 2.9 million viewers on CBSTorrey Pines’ best finish six years for the PGA Tour, and an increase of nearly 70 percent from last year’s final round. And the interest in Brooks Koepka’s big PGA Tour return wasn’t half bad either: Thursday and Friday’s opening rounds generated wins of 87 and 115 percent, respectively, on Golf Channel, and ESPN signed up for early coverage of the first two rounds on their cable network.
These are large, big numbers, but are they a sign of things to come? It is still too early to make any statements about that, especially since the figures for last week’s Sony Open TV final were only 106,000 average viewers, or roughly a third of the year before. But as with most golf TV ratings, it helps to add a dose of context. So let’s look at the reasons for golf’s big start in 2026.
1. Planning
It’s probably a good idea to start with the most obvious ratings qualifier: scheduling. Notably, this year’s Farmers Insurance Open was broadcast in its traditional Thursday through Sunday spot, ending a yearslong Wednesday through Saturday experiment to accommodate CBS’ broadcast of the AFC Championship Game.
The shift back to the traditional weekend schedule always led to higher ratings for Torrey, which never quite caught on in the new timeslot despite being praised for its flexibility. The Tour’s decision to move the event to the weekend after the conference championship games also helped. Without each football competed with the Farmers, Torrey Pines earned an entire weekend of national TV coverage, and the event quickly showed why so many golf fans have come to appreciate it on the calendar.
2. Nielsen
If the NFL is any indication, we’ll probably see it all This year, professional golf ratings are up as most of the sports world switches from the traditional Nielsen “panel” methodology to the new Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” methodology. The new “Big Data” panel, which includes better outdoor viewing experiences and attempts to capture a portion of those watching on Smart TVs, aims to reflect a more representative sample of the TV viewing audience than Nielsen’s traditional, device-driven method. But so far, Big Data’s impact has been greater for almost everyone in the sports industry, including the NFL, which was up about 10 percent by 2025.
For golf, the boosts can be even greater. In the eyes of many golf television executives, the sport has long been underrepresented in Nielsen ratings, thanks to its older, more affluent audience (who may be less inclined to put a traditional Nielsen device in their living room). Now, with Big Data, many executives theorize that the golfing audience can be reached more effectively, leading to greater profits. Again, it’s early, but this could be a big factor.
3. Scottie Scheffler
As strange as it may sound, the second half of the 2025 season showed real signs that Scheffler could be in rarefied air among golfers… and not just because of his winning percentage. Scheffler’s victories at the PGA Championship and the Open Championship drew large golf audiences – despite neither resulting in a particularly exciting finish – a sign that Scheffler’s dominance was beginning to seep into a more casual sporting audience.
His victory at the American Express reflected more of the same: a blowout win that was in direct conflict with the NFL conference championship games… and yet many golf fans stopped what they were doing to tune into his defeat. There isn’t enough evidence yet to call Scheffler a one-man needle mover. But perhaps we are not as far from that reality as it seems.
4. Brooks Koepka
Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour was a big story. It was also, critically, one early week story. Both of those things helped the ratings at the end of the week, even if some golf fans were annoyed by how much they saw from Koepka this weekend despite the large distance between him and the leadership.
Golf fans curious about Koepka’s return to golf could have been sucked into Thursday or Friday’s coverage, which could have had a downstream effect on Saturday and Sunday. It’s certainly an exaggeration to suggest that Koepka’s (or later Patrick Reed’s) return to the Tour will cause a bump for more than a week, but you can be sure that the Tour will grab every eyeball.
5. Coherence!
It’s become almost cliché to talk about the PGA Tour’s big goals for the future – fewer events, greater significance, more coherence to the golf calendar. But here may be the first signs of life. The West Coast swing has certainly felt juicier than in years past, a change that’s thanks to a calendar that seems to be moving more coherently… with events condensed into a more predictable window.
Consider the Amex, which typically doesn’t attract large audiences or headlines. Sure, it was helped by Scheffler winning, but his win only happened because he was in the fieldand he was alone in the field because an early-season flight to Kapalua was canceled from the calendar. The same goes for Torrey, who didn’t benefit from nearly as many stars in attendance but did benefit from the Tour’s emphasis on cohesion. The creation of a loophole in the eleventh hour rules allowed Koepka to immediately rejoin the Tour. And because he was able to get back in straight away, he was one of the biggest names and faces in an otherwise softer field.
It may not seem like much, but these are the decisions that impact ratings. So far the Tour has hit almost a thousand.
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