Good news first.
The latest numbers for golf television are up big. Like, significantly bigger than expected, huge. American Express 2026, won by Scottie Scheffler in his first start of the new year? That averaged 515,000 viewers for the weekend on the Golf Channel – more than 125 percent more than 2025, including a 281 percent jump during Saturday’s third round (which, mercifully, was not forced to compete with the AFC and NFC Championship games.)
2026 Farmers Insurance Open, won by Justin Rose in a blowout? This average 2.9 million viewers on CBSbest finish from Torrey Pines at six years for the PGA Tour, and an increase of nearly 70 percent over last year’s final round. And interest in Brooks Koepka’s big PGA Tour comeback wasn’t half bad either – with Thursday and Friday’s opening rounds generating 87 and 115 percent earnings, respectively, on the Golf Channel and ESPN signed on to carry early coverage of the two opening rounds on their cable network.
These are big, big numbers, but are they a sign of things to come? It’s too early to tell, especially with last week’s Sony Open TV final round figures coming in at just 106,000 average viewers, or roughly a third of last year. 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 in 2026.
1. Planning
It’s probably a good idea to start with the most obvious qualifier for ratings jumps: Planning. Notably, this year’s Farmers Insurance Open aired in its traditional Thursday through Sunday slot, ending a several-year experiment in the Wednesday through Saturday slot to accommodate CBS’ broadcast of the AFC Championship Game.
The shift to the traditional weekend schedule always resulted in higher ratings for Torrey, who never caught on to the new schedule despite earning praise for its flexibility. The Tour’s decision to move the event to the weekend AFTER conference championship games also helped. without any football competing with the Farmers, Torrey Pines earned a full weekend in the national television spotlight, and the event quickly showed why so many golf fans have come to adore it on the calendar.
2. Nielsen
If the NFL is any indication, we’ll likely see all of them ratings rose this year in pro golf as much of the sports world transitions from Nielsen’s traditional “panel” methodology to the new Nielsen “Big Data + Dashboard” methodology. The new “Big Data” dashboard, which includes the best out-of-home viewing and capture efforts a portion of those watching on smart TVsintended to reflect a more representative sample of the TV viewing audience than Nielsen’s traditional device-driven method. But so far, the effect of Big Data has been the biggest figure for almost everyone in the sports industry, including the NFL, which grew by about 10 percent through 2025.
For golf, the increase could be even more significant. In the eyes of many golf television executives, the sport has long been underrepresented in the Nielsen ratings thanks to its older, more affluent audience (who may be less inclined to put a traditional Nielsen “device” inside their living room). Now, with Big Data, many executives are theorizing that the golf audience can be captured more effectively, leading to greater profits. Again, it’s early, but this could be a big factor.
3. Scottie Scheffler
As strange as it sounds, the back half of the 2025 season showed real signs that Scheffler could be entering rarefied air among golfers… and not just for his winning percentage. Scheffler’s wins at the PGA Championship and the Open Championship gave golf a huge following — despite neither resulting in a particularly exciting finish — a sign that Scheffler’s dominance was beginning to seep through to a more casual sports audience.
His win at American Express reflected more of the same: An unexpected victory that ran directly against the NFL’s conference championship games … and yet many golf fans stopped what they were doing to adjust to his loss. There’s not enough evidence to call Scheffler a one-man needle mover … yet. But we may not be as far from that reality as it seems.
4. Brooks Koepka
Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour was a big story. It was also, critically, a at the beginning of the week history. Both things helped weekend ratings, even if some golf fans were upset by how much they saw of Koepka on the weekend, despite the wide gap between him and the leader.
Golf fans curious to see Koepka’s return to golf may have been caught up in coverage on Thursday or Friday, which may have had a downstream effect on Saturday and Sunday. It’s definitely a stretch to suggest that Koepka’s (or later, Patrick Reed’s) return to the Tour will bring a crash for more than a week, but you can bet the Tour will get every eye.
5. Coherence!
It’s become almost cliché to talk about the PGA Tour’s big goals for the future — fewer events, more prominence, more coherence on the golf calendar. But here there may actually be the first signs of life. The West Coast movement has felt significantly more fluid 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 Amex, which doesn’t usually attract a large audience or big headlines. Of course, this was helped by Scheffler’s victory, but his victory happened only because he was in the fieldand he was only on the field because an early-season flight to Kapalua had been taken off the calendar. The same goes for Torrey, who hasn’t benefited from as many stars in attendance, but has benefited from the tournament’s emphasis on consistency just as much. Thanks to the creation of an eleventh-hour loophole, Koepka was able to immediately re-enter the Tour. And because he was able to bounce back immediately, he was one of the biggest names and faces in an otherwise bland field.
It may not seem like much, but these are the decisions that change TV ratings. So far, the Tour is hitting nearly a thousand.
