Rory McIlroy's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am victory on Sunday was watched by an average of 3.3 million people in a significant buck to the recent PGA Tour trend.
CBS' final-round coverage saw the highest average number at the event since 2021 - when 4.19 million tuned in to watch Daniel Berger hold off Maverick McNealy, Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay - and marked it down as the most-watched non-Major, non-Players broadcast for over a year, according to Sports Business Journal's Josh Carpenter.
Also per Carpenter, CBS claimed viewership peaked at close to four million as McIlroy cruised towards the finish line late on Sunday afternoon.
The combination of several stellar names, one of the most picturesque golf courses in the world, and a tight leaderboard throughout undoubtedly led to significant interest from the start, with data from Golf Channel revealing that the 2025 Pebble Beach Pro-Am lead-in was the second most-watched ever behind the 2021 final round at 1.06 million.
In addition, Golf Channel's lead-in coverage of Pebble Beach was the most-watched early window on the PGA Tour since the 2024 WM Phoenix Open, which had 1.2 million viewers.
CBS gets 3.3M viewers for Pebble Beach final round, which would be the highest for the event since 2021 (Berger won, Spieth T3) at 4.19M. That would rank as the most-watched non-major, non-Players broadcasts for all of last season. pic.twitter.com/Byw4aySg9xFebruary 4, 2025
Such positive figures are in stark contrast to a pattern the PGA Tour and TV companies have been monitoring for well over a year now. Most recently, Sepp Straka's American Express win brought in an average of just 232,000 people on Sunday - a number which was 60% down on Nick Dunlap's victory in 2024 and close to 40% behind Jon Rahm's win in 2023.
That tournament was up against one of the NFL's Division Championship games, however, plus Straka's march to victory was a fairly straightforward one on a low-scoring Pete Dye Stadium Course.
The previous year saw this trend played out at the overwhelming majority of tournaments with fans growing increasingly tired of the regular conversation about money and the split in the world's top players competing on different tours.
Over the course of the entire 2024 regular PGA Tour season, including the four Major championships, an average of 2.8 million people tuned in to watch Sunday's action.
That number dropped to 2.2 million if The Masters, The Open Championship, the US Open, and the PGA Championship were excluded and was around 20% down (2.7m) on its previous year.
Even the Majors were not immune to lower TV broadcast numbers last term. CBS shared that Scottie Scheffler's second Masters triumph was the third-lowest-rated tournament telecast in history ahead of only 2020 and 2021 - which were Covid-affected.
However, coincidentally, another event where McIlroy was heavily involved down the stretch did exceed expectations. The 2024 US Open, where the Northern Irishman wasted his chance to land a fifth Major to Bryson DeChambeau, drew an average of 5.9 million viewers across its multiple platforms and was among the most watched editions of the championship in the past decade.
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