Lack of Drama Likely Culprit for The Open Championship’s Poor Sunday Ratings

The rule in television golf ratings for decades was whether Tiger Woods was participating in a tournament. With Woods absent from three of the four majors this year, a new trend has emerged.

If golf fans sense a competitive finish, they will watch.

Ratings for the Masters and the U.S. Open were way up. Numbers for the PGA Championship were down, and Sunday’s day-long coronation of Brian Harman as the winner of The Open Championship by six strokes didn’t capture the interest of the viewing public.

The TV ratings for the #OpenChampionship will be down. There was no drama today or yesterday in terms of who was going to win.

— Scott Scott (@ecwiscott) July 23, 2023

Sunday’s final round drew 3.35 million viewers and a 2.1 rating, which was the least-watched final round of the event on network television. The previous low was in 2014 when the event drew 3.29 million on ESPN.

Due to the time difference, the final round of the British Open drew the lowest viewership of the four majors:

• The Masters: 12.06 million
• PGA Championship: 4.52 million
• S. Open: 5.92 million
• The Open Championship: 3.35 million

Zero-swag Brian Harman nuked The Open field and also nuked the TV ratingshttps://t.co/s8yGHVDScc

— Dan Bayens (@danbayens) July 25, 2023

In addition, the final round of several other tournaments this year out-drew the final major of 2023, including the RBC Heritage, The Players Championship, the WM Phoenix Open, and The Genesis Invitational at Riviera.

Cover Image via Sporting News