Good news first.
The latest numbers for golf television are up big-time. Like, significantly-larger-than-expected, big-time. The 2026 American Express, won by Scottie Scheffler in his first start of the new year? That averaged 515,000 viewers for the weekend on Golf Channel — up more than 125 percent over 2025, including a 281 percent jump during Saturday’s third round (which, graciously, was not forced to compete with the AFC and NFC Championship games.)
The 2026 Farmers Insurance Open, won by Justin Rose in a blowout? That averaged 2.9 million viewers on CBS, the best finish from Torrey Pines in six years for the PGA Tour, and an increase of nearly 70 percent over last year’s final round. And the interest in Brooks Koepka’s big PGA Tour return wasn’t half-bad either — with Thursday and Friday’s opening rounds generating gains of 87 and 115 percent, respectively, on Golf Channel, and ESPN signing on to carry early day coverage of the opening two rounds on their cable network.
These are big, big numbers, but are they a sign of things to come? It’s early to say, especially with the previous week’s Sony Open TV final-round numbers coming in at just 106,000 average viewers, or roughly one-third of the year prior. But, like most golf TV ratings, it helps to add a dose of context. So, let’s examine the reasons for golf’s big start to 2026.
It’s probably a good idea for us to start with the most obvious qualifier for the ratings jumps: Scheduling. Notably, this year’s Farmers Insurance Open aired in its traditional Thursday-to-Sunday spot, ending a several-year experiment in the Wednesday to Saturday slot to accommodate CBS’s broadcast of the AFC Championship Game.
The shift back to the traditional weekend schedule always figured to result in bigger ratings for Torrey, which never quite caught on in the new timeslot despite earning praise for its flexibility. The Tour’s decision to move the event to the weekend after the conference championship games helped, too. Without any football competing with the Farmers, Torrey Pines earned a full weekend of national TV spotlight, and the event quickly showed why so many golf fans have come to adore it on the calendar.
If the NFL is any indication, it’s likely we’ll see all ratings up this year in pro golf, as the majority of the sports world shifts from the traditional Nielsen “panel” methodology to the new Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” methodology. The new “Big Data” panel, which incorporates better out-of-home viewing and attempts to capture a share of those watching on Smart TVs, aims to reflect a more representative sample of the TV-watching audience than Nielsen’s traditional device-driven method. But so far, the effect of Big Data has been bigger numbers for nearly everybody in the sports industry, including the NFL, which was up by about 10 percent over 2025.
For golf, the boosts could be even more significant. In the eyes of many golf television executives, the sport has long been underrepresented in Nielsen’s ratings thanks to its older, more affluent audience (which might be less inclined to place a traditional Nielsen “device” inside their living room). Now, with Big Data, many executives are theorizing the golf audience can be captured more effectively, leading to bigger gains. Again, it’s early, but this could be a big factor.
Strange as it sounds, the back half of the 2025 season showed real signals that Scheffler could be entering rarefied air among golfers … and not just for his win percentage. Scheffler’s wins at the PGA Championship and Open Championship delivered big audiences to golf — despite neither resulting in a particularly thrilling finish — a sign that Scheffler’s dominance was starting to seep in with a more casual sports audience.
His win at the American Express reflected more of the same: A blowout victory running directly against the NFL’s conference championship matchups … and yet many golf fans stopped what they were doing to tune in to his rout. There’s not enough evidence to call Scheffler a one-man needle-mover … yet. But we might not be as far from that reality as it seems.
Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour was a big story. It was also, critically, an early-week story. Both things helped the end-of-week ratings, even if some golf fans were peeved by how much they saw of Koepka on the weekend despite the wide distance between him and the lead.
Golf fans curious to see Koepka’s return to golf might have been sucked into Thursday or Friday’s coverage, which might have had a downstream effect on Saturday and Sunday. It’s certainly a stretch to suggest Koepka’s (or later, Patrick Reed’s) return to the Tour will provide a bump for more than a week, but you can bet the Tour will take every eyeball.
It’s become almost cliche to talk about the PGA Tour’s big goals for the future — fewer events, greater significance, more coherence to the golf calendar. But here there might actually be the first signs of life. The West Coast swing has felt decidedly juicier than in years’ past, a change owed to a calendar that seems to flow more coherently … with events condensed into a more predictable window.
Consider the Amex, which might not typically draw a big audience or big headlines. Sure, it was helped by Scheffler winning, but his win only happened because he was in the field, and he was only in the field because an early season flight to Kapalua was nixed from the calendar. Same goes for Torrey, which didn’t benefit from nearly as many stars in attendance, but benefited from the Tour’s emphasis on coherence just the same. Thanks to the creation of an eleventh-hour rules loophole, Koepka was able to reenter the Tour immediately. And because he was able to reenter immediately, he was one of the biggest names and faces in an otherwise softer field.
It might not seem like much, but these are the decisions that alter TV ratings. So far, the Tour is batting nearly a thousand.
The post 5 reasons for golf’s colossal TV ratings jump to start 2026 season appeared first on Golf.
