The PGA Championship Is Heading To ESPN/CBS in May

The PGA Championship is already going under profound changes to affect the PGA TOUR schedule. Now, the event is making seismic changes to the television landscape too.

2019 will mark the first year that the PGA Championship is played in May instead of August. While this is a major first for the new second major of the season, it will also mark the ending of another PGA TOUR normal. The PGA Championship, which has been broadcast on Turner Sports for the last 30 years, will no longer provide television coverage for the event.

Stepping in Turner’s place will be ESPN and CBS.  ESPN is set to handle the coverage of the first two rounds of the event while CBS will pick up the final two rounds. This is a big win for ESPN and CBS as they will now cover the first two majors of the season in accordance with their existing deal with The Masters.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with two great partners in CBS and ESPN for the next 11 years to continue to drive innovation in the production and coverage of major championship golf television,” PGA of America president Paul Levy said. “I’m also extremely excited about what this partnership will do to continue to elevate the value of the nearly 29,000 PGA Professionals who are helping to move this sport forward every day.”

Turner Sports will be taking a major hit with this new loss. The PGA Championship was the only major that Turner Sports provided coverage for and now that the tournament has moved on, Turner is out of the golf business altogether. With ESPN and CBS handling the first two majors, the U.S. Open will continue to be broadcast by Fox Sports with the Open Championship giving coverage to the Golf Channel and NBC Sports.

This is certainly a big move for the PGA Championship as it attempts to rebrand itself in a new light. I’m certainly excited to see how the whole thing works next year and if more attention does come to the new second major of the year.

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