Golf fans were left frustrated on Sunday afternoon when CBS missed a key portion of Sunday’s tournament coverage.
The final round of the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the second signature event of the season, began its television coverage Sunday afternoon on Golf Channel. That window, scheduled to go from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET, featured the first several holes played by the tournament’s leaders, including world No. 3 Rory McIlroy.
As is typical for PGA Tour broadcasts, coverage was slated to shift from Golf Channel to CBS at 3 p.m. ET for the conclusion of the tournament. Golf fans are plenty used to this, it’s been the norm in the sport for years. However, the timing of Sunday’s handover between networks angered fans.
Before airing coverage of Pebble Beach, the Ohio State-Illinois college basketball game overran its scheduled television window. The game, which was largely out of reach in the last couple of minutes, did not conclude until 3:10 p.m. ET.
Often in this situation, Golf Channel will continue its coverage — using CBS production and announcers — until the overrun programming is finished.
A similar situation happened Saturday during the third-round coverage of the tournament. An Arizona-Arizona State college basketball game was running late on CBS, and Golf Channel continued its coverage of Pebble Beach past its scheduled 3 p.m. ET window until the basketball game concluded.
Perplexingly, this was not the programming strategy the two networks went with for the final round on Sunday. Instead of Golf Channel continuing to air coverage of the tournament, the broadcast went entirely off the air, only available on CBS Sports’ digital platforms and Paramount+ until the basketball game concluded. Golf Channel began airing an encore presentation of today’s DP World Tour event from Bahrain.
To make matters worse, the leaders at Pebble Beach were about to play one of the sport’s most iconic stretches of holes right as coverage went dark: No. 6 and No. 7.
By the time CBS picked up coverage after the basketball game ended, Rory McIlroy was teeing off on the eighth hole. Golf fans completely missed the leaders playing two of the best holes of the season unless they flipped on a stream.
This didn’t sit well with golf fans, many of whom took to social media to express their frustration.
There’s no greater golf tradition than the leaders hitting one of the best stretches of golf in the world directly in the awkward Golf Channel/CBS transition at Pebble Beach.
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) February 2, 2025
Golf on TV currently: A replay of Callum Tarren’s range session in Bahrain.
Golf not on TV currently: The leaders playing Nos. 6-7 as Rory tries to win Pebble. pic.twitter.com/fpVYEvPtxn
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterNS) February 2, 2025
GOLF Channel broadcast signing off, college basketball is still on CBS, and golf fans are pushed to streaming as the leaders hit one of the most iconic stretches in golf. pic.twitter.com/BadCu07rA0
— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) February 2, 2025
The war between college basketball and golf broadcasts will be written about in history books
— Patrick McDonald (@pmcdonaldCBS) February 2, 2025
It’s really an inexcusable decision. If Golf Channel had other live programming obligations, this would be a bit more defensible. But they were airing a replay of a tournament that was already finished. This situation was entirely avoidable with just a little bit of common sense.
Unfortunately, the networks failed golf fans today.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.