Golf Is Thriving: Sunday's Masters Ratings Were Up 19% And Were The Highest Of Any Golf Broadcast In 5 Years

You absolutely love to see it.

For all the talk about how LIV Golf has fractured the sport, it seems to me that golf is doing pretty damn well. Some of the ratings jump can be attributed to the boom from COVID, but there's definitely something to be said about the 4 majors being the only opportunities to watch all of the world's best compete on one stage. Much has been made about elevated events on the PGA Tour, but those 4 occasions remain (and will always remain) the top dogs that puts asses in seats.

What's most impressive to me is that Sunday even exceeded the ratings from 2019 when Tiger did the unthinkable against a cast of stud contenders. Tiger has always been a massive ratings draw and his win that year was the biggest sports moment of that year imho. It may have been played earlier in the day, but I would have thought that year's ratings would have dwarfed any year's ratings for the rest of time. It was the perfect storm, literally and figuratively.

But nope. 2023 topped it. The storylines going into Sunday were great, with former world-beater Brooks Koepka looking to plant the LIV flag (ok, maybe Greg Norman more than Koepka himself) against Jon Rahm, who is just about as great as it gets on the PGA Tour. It didn't play out in the most exciting fashion for the 2nd year running, but people still tuned in in droves anyway. Can't help but think Full Swing on Netflix only helped matters there too.

Golf is in a great place right now, whether you're a fan of the LIV v PGA Tour drama or not. Young stars everywhere you look. Can't wait for next month at Oak Hill for the PGA.