The PGA Tour dominated LIV Golf in 2025, posting record TV viewership.
The Tour’s TV ratings represented a significant bounce-back year, following viewership declines in 2024. Star-studded leaderboards and captivating storylines grabbed the attention of golf fans all season.
This was helped by Rory McIlroy winning The Masters, Tommy Fleetwood’s search for his first PGA Tour win, and Scottie Scheffler’s remarkable dominance. But the tour still wants to make drastic changes.
It was revealed near the end of last year that tour CEO Brian Rolapp planned to cut down the PGA Tour season, so it began after the Super Bowl. The former NFL executive clearly believes the tour is not equipped to challenge football, especially during playoff season.
And he was proven exactly right by the viewership figures from the PGA Tour’s first event of the season.
PGA Tour viewership figures from Sony Open prove Brian Rolapp exactly right
According to Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter, the PGA Tour’s opening week at the Sony Open was down significantly.
He posted to X, “Got lost a bit with the MLK holiday delay, but Golf Channel drew 106,000 viewers for the final round of the Sony Open (Chris Gotterup winner).
“This year was on Golf Channel only; last year NBC had the lead-in/promo to the GC coverage, which drew 344K (panel only) for the final round.
“Thursday (222K) and Friday (216K) actually had higher viewership than the weekend this year, magnifying the NFL/football impact on numbers.”
So there you have it. Rolapp’s point is completely justified. When Thursday and Friday’s rounds have better viewership than the big finale, you have proof that the tour simply should not be attempting to compete with the NFL during the playoffs.
It will shorten the season and see events on the West Coast cast aside, but the tour will have free airspace for its biggest events following the conclusion of the NFL season.
What Rory McIlroy said about the reported PGA Tour schedule changes
Rory McIlroy, typically a golf traditionalist, didn’t give the reported changes his stamp of approval when asked about them recently.
Speaking to reporters after his TGL match, he has some concerns about how short the season might be: “Keegan[Bradley] and I were talking about this earlier. We’ve all heard the rumblings without really knowing what’s being said in those rooms and what they’re thinking of.
“Obviously, I think we’ve all heard starting maybe after the Super Bowl and then going through to the end of August before the football season starts again. That seems very condensed to me. Seems like a lot of golf in a pretty short period of time, depending on how many events they want to play.”
There will be only 20 events, all of equal value, in 2027 if reports are to be believed. This puts more importance on each week, forcing big names to play more. So while there will be less golf, these events should see more people tune in, week in, week out.
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