The viewership debate drags on—just like slow play. Fans have called out the PGA Tour’s broadcast issues for years! This issue relates less to the viewership numbers and more to what the Tour is focusing on: more advertisements and less emphasis on actual golf! Recently, Trent and Riggs sat down for a discussion on Fore Play Podcast Plus, where they addressed the PGA Tour broadcast situation. “They don’t know how to televise golf tournaments, despite how many they do each year.”

So what happens when a casual fan tunes in? They see a player swinging strongly in the final round, but they have no idea how the golfer reached that point. This is especially problematic if it’s a less popular golfer, as the cameras tend to focus more on the popular ones. Take the example from 2023. During the much-anticipated Tiger Woods comeback at the Hero World Challenge, the cameras focused primarily on the legend. When they weren’t on him, commercials dominated the broadcast. Many other players were on the field! Who took the win? Scottie Scheffler!

“They gotta figure out a way, especially near the end of the golf tournament. When there are two guys who have a good chance of winning it. Just show all their shots. They failed at it again. It’s a brutal watching experience.” The situation seems persistent, so what does Jay Monahan think? “Listen, I think that as we have come into this year, we look at — we look very specifically at the number of golf shots that we’re showing per hour, and we do that with our network partners, and we’ve made material improvements on that front.”

Additionally, Monahan cites receiving positive feedback for the broadcast sharing player/caddie interactions.  “We’re evolving in a way with our partners that has more golf shots per minute, fewer shorter putts, capturing the drama, doing all the things that we think that they want.”

Seem pretty technical for a simple problem. Though, Jay Monahan is not freshly handling this. Take a look at it.

The age-old issue of broadcast and the PGA Tour

In 2023, Jay Monahan sat down for an interview to discuss the tour’s media rights. He mentioned that they had all been discussing the broadcast situation from the previous year (2022). “One of the things that we have attempted to do together coming into this year was to show more live golf shots.” But have we seen the change? According to fans, no.

Back in 2024, Sahith Theegala took the lead at The Sentry Tournament with a 9-under 64. However, the PGA Tour’s coverage received a wave of criticism for being lackluster. Fans complained that the broadcast spent too much time showing the leaderboard in silence and featuring commentators talking while the actual live action unfolded off-screen!

Last year, when Collin Morikawa pondered about bringing golf to a broader audience, he picked up on the broadcast. “We need to make more people more interested in golf. We need to make golf more intriguing to the viewers. How do we make broadcasting more approachable? How do we see more golf shots at the end of the day, right?” The problem is that if you don’t show the game, people will seek other ways for game updates. “The reason why other sports are –people pay attention is because people see more, you can probably bet more,” Morikawa added.

Jay Monahan remains positive, though. He discussed the CBS and PGA Tour’s collaborative drone tracking technology at TPC Sawgrass. If you didn’t follow it, this technology was also present at this year’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. According to CBS coordinating producer Sellers Shy, this aims to bring viewers even closer to the action. The question is, will fans notice the difference starting March 13 when plenty of star golfers finally kick off The PLAYERS Championship? Well, we will have to wait and see.