Scottie Scheffler may not have the same impact on golf ratings as Tiger Woods did, but his run of dominance certainly isn’t bad for the game either as seen at the Open Championship.
Scheffler won his second major of the season at Royal Portrush in comfortable fashion, leading by several strokes for pretty much the entire round on Sunday. He now has four majors in the last four years and has firmly cemented himself as the best golfer in the world. In fact, his incredible record over the past few years is actually starting to draw legitimate Tiger comparisons.
While that hasn’t happened yet on television, viewers responded on Sunday to the Scottie Scheffler Open Championship coronation. Viewership was up 21 percent for Sunday’s final round coverage from Xander Schauffele’s victory last year and 16 percent for the entire tournament according to the network.
Sunday’s final round coverage on NBC and Peacock (9:02 a.m. – 1:51 p.m. ET) produced a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 4.1 million viewers, up 21% vs. 2024, according to data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. Viewership peaked at more than 6.1 million viewers in the 1:30-1:45 p.m. ET quarter hour, as Rory McIlroy concluded his round and Scottie Scheffler closed out his first-ever Open title, defeating Harris English by four shots.
Weekend coverage on NBC and Peacock averaged 3.6 million viewers, up 24% from the comparable windows in 2024. The Saturday/Sunday windows were television’s most-watched sports telecasts of the weekend.
Thursday and Friday early-round coverage on USA Network averaged of more than 1 million viewers, up 18% vs. 2024, also ranking as the most-watched early-round coverage of The Open since 2022, which featured Tiger Woods in the field.
Overall, four-day coverage of The Open averaged more than 2 million viewers on NBC and USA Network, up 16% vs. 2024, and best since 2022.
While last year’s PGA Tour ratings appeared to be apocalyptic in the middle of the ongoing showdown between the tour and LIV Golf, viewership numbers have definitely bounced back this season across the board. Of course, the majors have been helped by Scheffler’s two victories, Rory McIlroy winning the career grand slam at The Masters, and JJ Spaun winning the US Open in incredible walk-off fashion. That’s as good of a major championship run as the sport has seen in a good while.
Tiger Woods will likely never be competitive again in major championships or elsewhere, so it’s up to Scottie Scheffler to carry the flag for professional golf moving forward. And after some early worries that he would be able to do so, more and more fans seem to be coming on board. From his play on the course to his good guy approach off the course, he’s doing as good of a job as he possibly can right now.
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