AUGUSTA, Ga.: Golf has a scores downside.
The week-to-week grind of the PGA Tour has basically change into No Need To See TV, elevating severe issues about what it means for the way forward for the sport.
Now comes the Masters, the primary main championship of the yr and historically a scores behemoth.
If Augusta National produces its standard stellar numbers, it might be an unmistakable signal that the PGA Tour’s ongoing rift with the upstart LIV circuit is inflicting increasingly more informal viewers to tune out.
“It’s certainly one possibility,” Masters chairman Fred Ridley stated Wednesday on the eve of the opening spherical. “Certainly the fact that the best players in the world are not convening very often is not helpful. Whether or not there’s a direct causal effect, I don’t know. But I think that it would be a lot better if they were together more often.”
LIV Golf, armed with the seemingly limitless sources of its Saudi backers, has doled out billions of {dollars} to lure among the recreation’s greatest gamers away from the established PGA Tour — a powerful checklist that features reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm and five-time main winner Brooks Koepka.
Even although the 2 sides reached a merger settlement 10 months in the past, there may be little signal that they’re near understanding all of the fantastic print. Which means the perfect gamers from every tour solely get collectively a couple of weeks a yr, leaving a pair of watered-down circuits for viewers to selected from the rest of the yr.
Increasingly, it might appear, the scores present many have determined to tune out altogether.
— The remaining spherical of the PGA Tour’s Phoenix Open drew simply 2.38 million viewers, a shocking 35% plunge from the earlier yr, in response to Sports Media Watch.
— The Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill was watched by 2.29 million on its closing day, a 30% dip from 2023 and the match’s worst fourth-round quantity in seven years.
— A riveting end at The Players Championship couldn’t transfer the needle, its common of three.53 million viewers representing a 15% slippage from a yr earlier. In reality, the scores for all 4 rounds of the Players had been down from their 2023 ranges.
It’s not like all these misplaced viewers have merely switched the channel to LIV, which is looking for to boost a staid ol’ sport with 54-hole tournaments, shotgun begins, loud music and a crew competitors inside every occasion.
The upstart circuit — which to this point has did not land a serious TV deal, leaving it far down the dial on The CW — barely registers within the scores with viewership numbers usually within the low tons of of 1000’s.
PGA Tour participant Peter Malnati, who received the Valspar Championship three weeks in the past, believes all of the speak about cash within the PGA-LIV showdown has turned off many followers.
“People are just sick of the narrative in golf being about, you know, contracts on LIV, purses on the tour,” he stated. “They want to see sport, they want to see people who are the best in the world at what they do, do it at a high level and celebrate that, celebrate the athleticism, celebrate the achievement.”
Malnati stated a few of his fondest reminiscences rising up had been watching Michael Jordan lead the Chicago Bulls to an NBA championship and Tiger Woods’ record-setting victory on the 2000 U.S. Open.
“I didn’t care one iota what Jordan’s contract was,” Malnati stated. “I didn’t care one iota what the winner’s check at that U.S. Open was.”
He surmises that nothing has modified with right now’s followers.
“Obviously, this is a business, and to the top players who drive a lot of the value in this business, we’ve got to compensate them fairly,” Malnati stated. “But I think we’re doing that above and beyond, and the narrative, the storylines, the conversation needs to come back to the product on the course and what we do.
“No kid dreamed when they were watching Jordan dreamed of having his salary,” he went on. “They didn’t care about that. They dreamed of being in that moment, hitting that shot. I think that’s what our fans care about, too, and that’s what they want to see.”
Of course, there’s one other concern at work right here. While nobody doubts the talent of right now’s prime gamers, neither tour has a mesmerizing determine reminiscent of Jordan or Woods, somebody who actually strikes the needle.
Scottie Scheffler would be the world’s top-ranked participant, however he can stroll down almost any road in America with out being acknowledged.
Compounding the difficulty, the primary three months of the PGA Tour season have produced a string of nondescript winners, from Grayson Murray to Austin Eckroat to Stephan Jaeger. Some nice storylines, to make sure, however extra suited to the hard-core fan than the drop-in viewer.
This is Masters week, nevertheless, which has by no means had any bother drawing eyeballs to the display screen.
All the highest gamers are at Augusta National, and thousands and thousands will probably be watching when the inexperienced jacket is handed out Sunday night.
By Monday, when the numbers are calculated, everybody ought to have a greater thought simply how a lot the PGA-LIV feud has contributed to the dwindling viewership all these different weeks.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
